Mistakes and Regrets
by radredknuxfan
Summary: A routine battle against bandits goes horribly wrong when Po's choices end up getting people hurt, including his dad. Overcome with guilt, Po exiles himself from the Valley despite the Furious Five insisting that it was an accident. When he returns after years have passed, he's changed, but is it for the better? Rated T for dark themes. AU. Please R&R! COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

Okay, so I just saw Kung Fu Panda 3 a few days ago. (Really good movie by the way. Please go see it. You'll love it.) Anyway, I decided that I really wanted to do a story after seeing the movie, but now that I've finally experienced what the KFP archive was capable of, I **really** want to do one now. So technically, yes, this is my first KFP fanfic, but no, this is not my first fanfic. I have a bunch more that I've done on my profile. They're not KFP-related, but I do think they're pretty good. Anyway, enjoy!

Oh, and by the way, this story was inspired by Pandafan91's story Fate Can Be So Cruel. I don't think this'll be as dark as his story, but I'm aiming for something close.

* * *

It was a quiet morning inside the Valley of Peace. All of its inhabitants were just getting up from their night of sleep, ready for another morning of trading and simply living day to day.

One of the more beautiful parts of the Valley, though, happened to be the ornate Jade Palace, situated at the top of what has been known throughout the Valley as the Thousand Stairs. This is where the Kung Fu masters known as the Furious Five live, along with their own Master, a red panda named Shifu, as well as Grandmaster Oogway, a turtle that has watched over the Valley of Peace for many years, protecting it even as the Furious Five has supplanted him and Shifu as the main protectors.

Our story starts back in the village, however, as a large group of wolves sauntered in through the main gate to the village. Most of them carried some form of weapon, including swords, crossbows and maces, but there were some that were unarmed, which was mostly due to the fact that they were the leaders of said group.

As they walked through the main thoroughfare of the village, the group of wolves were ignoring the stares that were being given to them by the villagers, no doubt due to their attire that presented them as bandits. Instead of immediately panicking, though, the villagers were waiting to see what would happen.

They didn't have to wait long, though, as the bandits stopped in their tracks in the center of the village. The area soon fell silent for a few moments before one of the bandits at the front of the pack gestured, and all of the others soon went on the attack.

Soon, screams of fear split through the morning, as the bandits ran throughout the village, ransacking everything they could manage to get their hands on.

As the wolves continued to have their way with the hapless villagers, there were two other villagers standing over by the Thousand Steps, forced to watch as the bandits threatened the lives of some of the village's inhabitants between all of the random looting and debauchery.

Finally, unable to watch any more, one of the villagers, a pig, turned towards the villager standing next to him, which happened to be a goat staring blankly at the destruction around him.

"What are you just standing around for? We have to warn the Jade Palace before the village is burned to the ground!" said the pig.

The goat somehow managed to tear himself away from the carnage for a few moments, allowing himself to finally focus on the task at hand. He quickly sprinted over to the warning gong, dodging bandits the entire way there as he quickly thanked the gods that the gong was still standing.

Once he managed to reach the gong, he didn't waste any time, grabbing the large mallet and whacking the gong as hard as he could with it.

The sound of the gong reverberated throughout the valley as the goat repeatedly struck it with the mallet, not wanting to take any chances that the Masters of the Jade Palace would not have heard it.

Eventually, the goat stopped banging on the gong, returning the mallet to its original spot as the gong continued to reverberate.

"Come on, please save us, Masters!" the goat thought as he stared at the Thousand Steps, waiting for them to arrive.

However, before he could see them coming down, a shadow suddenly darkened the area around him, and he gulped nervously before turning around to find a wolf bandit standing right behind him.

"Well, well, looks like we've got a bit of a tattletale here. Do you seriously think those pathetic masters can save you all now?" he asked while chuckling evilly.

The goat could only shake in fear as he eyed the broadsword that the wolf carried, a fact the bandit noticed almost immediately.

"Oh look, I almost forgot that I still had this with me. Good, I've always wanted to have some goatskin to wear! I've heard that they're perfect for winter." said the wolf as he brandished the sword in front of him.

The goat immediately panicked as he saw the sword coming closer. However, as much as he wanted to run, the goat's legs wouldn't listen to him, and he ended up being forced to cower in fear, knowing that the end was close for him.

Fate had other plans, however, as the goat soon noticed another shadow fly over him before a loud crack soon reverberated through the area around him.

Looking up, the goat soon noticed that the wolf with the sword was no longer in front of him. Instead, said wolf was on the ground a few feet in front of him, clearly knocked out.

Confused, the villager stood up, wondering what was going on, when he finally got a good look at who was now standing in front of him.

"T-the Dragon Warrior?"

It was indeed the Dragon Warrior standing in front of him, a panda whose name was Po, as he stood in a fighting stance, waiting to see if the wolf would get back up. When he didn't, Po relaxed for a moment, turning towards the goat, who was staring at the Dragon Warrior in wonder.

"Hey, you'd better get back inside where it's safe, little guy. We'll take care of these bandits."

The goat continued to stare at Po for a few more moments, which made the panda feel a little awkward. Thankfully, though, the pig who was standing next to him earlier came by, lightly shoving him towards the nearest house.

"Thank you for saving us all, Dragon Warrior!" said the pig as she ushered the goat towards safety.

Po couldn't help but feel a little bashful, knowing that the Furious Five was in the village with him taking on the bandits, but he still appreciated the compliment all the same.

Unfortunately, by the time he went to thank them, they were already gone, so he decided that he should probably go and help the others. However, he didn't simply want to simply rush over and take them out with simple kung fu. He wanted to make it a little more interesting, knowing that the Furious Five was more than capable of taking on the bandits themselves.

Po quickly climbed on to the roof of the nearest building he could find, which was a bit slow going, considering he wasn't exactly in the best shape to be doing strenuous labor like that. After finally reaching the roof, he quickly looked around the area trying to find where the Furious Five were.

He eventually did manage to find the others, but to his surprise, he found that they weren't currently handling the bandits with ease. Rather, the Five were standing across from five of the bandits that weren't already knocked out on the ground around them.

Po admittedly wondered exactly why they weren't kicking the bandits' butts already, but as he got closer, he found out that each of the bandits was holding a villager hostage, a crossbow aimed at each by the wolves.

"Oh no." Po said to himself, worried.

Po couldn't exactly hear what was happening over the commotion of the villagers around the Five so, even though he assumed that they must be negotiating for their release, he had no idea how well it was going.

As much as he wanted to wait and see if the Five would be able to convince the bandits to let the villagers go, he could tell that some of the wolves had itchy trigger fingers, as the hands brandishing the crossbows were starting to shake.

Po needed to think of something fast if he wanted to prevent the bandits from firing their crossbows and possibly killing the villagers, so he quickly formulated a plan before putting it into action.

Taking a few steps back to ready himself, Po quickly sprinted forwards before jumping off of the roof.

"Shakabooey!"

The wolves looked up at who made the noise to find a large black and white object flying straight towards them, beginning to spin in place as it came closer.

"Po, wait!"

Po was completely zoned in on where he was going to land as he put his plan into action, but when he heard the warning, it completely caught him off guard, and his landing ended up being off target.

Po still successfully managed to land near the bandits, but not on his feet like he had planned. Instead, Po crashed into the ground on his side, landing painfully before bouncing off of the ground and by sheer luck managing to crash into the bandits in front of him.

However, his luck soon changed for the worse, as while he did manage to get the wolves to release their captives, all five of the bandits fired their crossbows in panic as they were sent flying, and the bolts just happened to go into the crowd, screams piercing through the crowd as they ended up hitting villagers.

As Po came to a stop, he slowly picked himself up, his heart beating hard when he heard the screams.

"Oh no. What did I do?" he said to himself.

Po could barely focus on the task in front of him when he realized just what happened, but thankfully the Furious Five took care of the rest of the bandits, knocking them out while they were still dazed from the Dragon Warrior crashing into them.

"Quickly! Check on the injured!" yelled Tigress once she managed to incapacitate her bandit.

As Po watched the scene in front of him in shock, his brain unable to process just what happened, the Furious Five went to check on each of the villagers that were hit with the crossbow bolts.

"This villager's fine. Looks like the bolt just missed the internal organs." said Viper as she checked on her ward.

The rest of the Five checked in soon after Viper finished speaking, revealing that each of the villagers who were hit were all going to be okay. However, when the last member of the Five spoke up, which happened to be Tigress herself, what she said made Po's heart fall even further.

"Mr. Ping, are you alright?"


	2. Chapter 2

"Dad?"

Po slowly looked over towards where Tigress was, hoping that his dad wasn't one of the ones who he'd accidentally gotten shot, but when he finally laid eyes on the scene in front of him, panic soon set in as he realized that his worst fear was realized.

"Dad!"

Po immediately rushed over to Tigress, not caring who was in his way. After sliding to a stop, Po immediately dropped to his knees and cradled his dad's head, tears starting to fall as he registered just what he did.

"I'm sorry, Dad, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you hurt. Please don't die on me."

Tigress, meanwhile, was kneeling nearby, and she placed a paw on Po's shoulder in an attempt at sympathy.

"Po, your father is going to be alright. The arrow just hit him in the side. Thankfully it missed the internal organs."

Po was barely listening to what Tigress was said, as he was still quite distraught at what has just happened, but when he looked down to where he assumed Mr. Ping's lifeless form would be, he found that his dad was quite awake.

"Dad? You're alive!"

"Of course I'm alive! Did you really think a simple crossbow bolt was going to take your old man down?" said Mr. Ping, chuckling a bit before wincing at the pain in his side.

Unable to resist any longer, Po wrapped his arms around his dad, giving him the biggest hug he could manage.

"I'm so glad you're okay, Dad." said Po, his voice muffled as subtly tried to wipe his eyes using his shoulder.

"I am too, son, but please let me go! I can't breathe, and the arrow in my side isn't making things any easier!"

Po, realizing what was going on, immediately let his dad go, returning him to Tigress so that she would be able to perform a preliminary checkup while the healer was still on his way.

The elation at seeing his dad survive ended pretty quickly, though, as once Po stood up and turned to face the rest of the crowd, he found that there was a mix of emotions. Most of them were glad to have survived another bandit attack, but the villagers who were nearest where the victims were located were staring at the Dragon Warrior.

Po, completely caught off guard by all of the looks he was getting, looked around the area, wondering why exactly the villagers were staring at him, when he soon realized that a good majority of the stares were accusatory.

The revelation made Po's eyes widen in shock as he slowly backed towards the Thousand Steps. However, when the villagers' eyes continued to follow him as he backed off, Po's nerve immediately broke and he rushed up the stairs, nearly tripping over himself on the first few steps.

As Po continued to run up the Thousand Steps, surprisingly at a quicker pace than he normally would have, the Furious Five met in the center of the square, having given care of the victims over to the village healers.

"Alright, everyone ready to head back up to the palace? I'm sure Master Shifu is looking forward to our report." said Tigress.

"Uh, can we possibly not mention the fact that some of the villagers got hurt? I doubt Master Shifu would be too pleased to hear about that, especially considering it was Po who did it." said Master Mantis as he hopped up on to Master Crane's hat.

"Hey, don't blame Po for this! How would you expect anyone to know that something like this would happen?" asked Master Viper as she defended Po's actions.

"Well, to be fair, I did feel like the negotiations were going well." said Master Crane as he looked up towards Mantis through the brim of his hat.

"I kind of doubt that." said Mantis, earning himself a look from Crane.

"Anyway, we probably shouldn't be wasting any more time. Let's get these bandits round up and get them sent off to Chorh-Gom Prison before we head back up to the palace and try to figure out how to explain what Po did." said Tigress.

"Speaking of, where is Po?" asked Monkey, chiming in a few seconds later.

The Five looked around the market square and soon noticed that they were in fact short one Dragon Warrior.

"Huh. Guess he must have headed back up to the palace. Kind of would've been nice of him to help us out, though." said Mantis.

"Yeah. I can't help but be worried about the big guy, though. I mean, sure, Po's not exactly completely blameless, here, but I'm sure that he didn't mean to do it." said Crane.

"Obviously. Po's the sweetest guy we know. He would never intentionally hurt someone innocent." said Viper.

"Enough! Let's focus on the mission here. We need to get these bandits tied up before they wake up again." said Tigress.

"Yeah, I don't think they'll be waking up for a while, Tigress, especially after the beating we put of all of them." said Monkey, earning him a glare from the Tiger Style master due to his sarcastic tone.

The Five soon set to work rounding up all of the bandits scattered throughout the square, splitting them into groups before tying them all together. Thankfully, this was just about the time when the caravan to Chorh-Gom usually comes by the village, so after the bandits were picked up and hauled off, the Furious Five made their way up the Thousand Steps, none of them looking forwards to explaining what happened to Shifu.

* * *

"What is the meaning of this? Explain yourselves this instant!"

Tigress was surprised to find Master Shifu already at the entrance to the Jade Palace just as the Five managed to make their way to the top of the steps, and he didn't look too happy.

"I'm not sure what you mean, Master Shifu. The mission was a success. The bandits are on their way to Chorh-Gom as we speak." said Tigress, bowing along with the rest of the Furious Five as she spoke.

"I'm not talking about that! I'm talking about how you've managed to let five villagers get shot with crossbows!"

"Wait, how did you find out about that?" asked Crane, confused.

"I ran into the Dragon Warrior not too long ago. I had to spend a good amount of time trying to get him to talk before I found out about that little tidbit. He seems to be blaming himself for this problem, though, which is interesting."

"Well, it is the truth." mumbled Crane, earning himself a sharp elbow from Monkey to shut him up. Before Monkey could try to explain himself to Shifu, though, Tigress stepped in.

"While it is true that Po's actions did lead to the bandit's crossbows firing, we have discussed the matter between ourselves and we believe that there was absolutely no ill intent in the case of the Dragon Warrior."

Tigress soon fell silent, but before Shifu could say anything more about the matter, Tigress soon spoke up once more, catching everyone off guard by what she said next.

"Also, I believe that I may have had some form of involvement with the accident as well."

The other members of the Furious Five stared at Tigress in shock, surprised that she would be willing to shoulder some of the blame herself.

"What? How?" asked Shifu, staring at Tigress in bewilderment.

Tigress released a breath through her nose to calm herself down before finally explaining herself.

"Some of the bandits ended up taking hostages while we were dealing with the threat. Those were the ones that we mentioned had the crossbows with them. We attempted to convince them to let the hostages go, but unfortunately they weren't listening to reason."

"I assume that those were the villagers that were hurt, correct?"

"No, Master Shifu. What actually happened was that Po was off to the side handling some of the bandits that were not part of the main group. While we were negotiating, I noticed him on top of one of the roofs in the village. I tried to warn him against attacking, but he already jumped off of the roof by the time I spoke up."

"Go on." said Master Shifu, listening attentively to Tigress.

"Now, I am unsure as to whether his original plan was actually going to work or not. I think you may need to speak to the Dragon Warrior about that, but I believe that my warning may have distracted him. He did still manage to crash into the bandits, quite painfully I might add, but by sheer luck the crossbows ended up firing, and flew into the crowd. I'm sure you would get an idea of what happened from there."

Tigress watched as Shifu processed her explanation, the master's eyes shifting between each of the Furious Five as he thought.

"What is the status of the injured?"

"The healers are checking them over as they speak, but they appear to all be non-life threatening." said Viper.

"Then why does the Dragon Warrior seem so upset?"

"I'm not sure, Master Shifu."

"I assume it may have had something to do with the fact that one of the injured was his father, but that is just a guess." said Monkey.

Shifu paused to think once more before finally making his decision known.

"I'm willing to let this incident pass without any repercussions now that I am aware that the villagers are going to be alright. However, I must remind you all not to let this happen again. Am I understood?"

"Yes, Master Shifu." said all of the Furious Five at once, bowing at Shifu before returning to attention.

"Now, if one of you would be so kind as to fetch the Dragon Warrior. The morning schedule has already been interrupted by the bandit attack, and I do not wish to delay it any further."

"I'll go find him, Master Shifu." said Viper, bowing once more before slithering away towards the Student Quarters, where she assumed that he would most likely be.

* * *

It turned out that Viper was correct in her assumption, because when she made her way into the quarters, she quickly saw the shadow of Po through the rice paper walls of his room.

When she made her way over to his room, though, she was surprised to hear the quiet sound of sobbing coming from inside.

"Po? Are you alright?" she asked as she slowly pulled the door open.

The massive form of the panda jumped when he heard Viper's voice. Po quickly wiped his eyes before turning towards the snake in an attempt to hide what was going on a moment ago.

"I'm fine, Viper. Did you need something?" he asked, plastering on a fake smile as he spoke.

Viper pretty easily managed to see through Po's poor attempt at hiding what he was doing thanks to the fact that his eyes were still pretty wet, and the fur under his eyes looked pretty disheveled.

"Seriously Po, I know that you're trying to hide something."

"I told you, Viper, I'm fine! Now what did you want from me?" asked Po, sounding a little more agitated than he wanted to be.

Viper was slightly taken aback by Po's sudden outburst, causing the panda to immediately backpedal in an attempt to make it up to her.

"I'm sorry, Viper. I didn't mean to be so harsh. I'm just…worried about my dad." he said, making up a quick excuse.

Even though Viper was one of the more trusting members of the Furious Five that Po has ever really known during his time living in the Jade Palace, he knew that there was no way she would believe the fact that the villagers blamed him for the five injuries.

Po was initially reluctant to believe that the villagers did in fact blame him, but when he saw all of the looks that he was being given, his heart broke when he realized that it was more likely than not the truth.

Po paused as he waited for Viper to speak, hoping that she bought his excuse. The look on her face said she didn't believe him, but to the panda's surprise, Viper sighed before finally speaking.

"Master Shifu sent me here to collect you for training today with the rest of us. I would suggest you get yourself cleaned up, though. You look like a mess."

Po looked on, surprised, as he watched Master Viper slither away. Just before turning around the corner, though, she turned back to face him, a sympathetic look on her face.

"And Po, anytime you're ready to talk, we're here for you, alright?" she said before finally slithering around the corner.

Po didn't answer, unsure of whether to even consider Viper's offer.

* * *

Life soon returned to normal around the Valley of Peace. A few days have passed since the last bandit attack, and Mr. Ping and the villagers who were shot were progressing nicely in their recoveries.

Up at the Jade Palace, though, things were a little bit strained.

Po and the Furious Five were still going through their routines just as usual, with training and other activities among the palace grounds eating up their time. However, Po's heart just hasn't been in it the last few days.

Sure, he was still training along with the rest of the Five, but it was beginning to become more noticeable that Po was simply going through the motions, and it was beginning to annoy Shifu.

"Panda! Put some effort into those strikes! You're barely tickling those dummies!" he yelled as he watched Po lightly maneuver around the training dummies, striking and dodging the dummies attacks as he moved with a lackadaisical attitude.

Po quickly amped up the strength and speed of his attacks to please Master Shifu, but as soon as the red panda looked away, he sighed heavily before returning to his lazy strikes.

This ended up becoming the norm for the next few days, and even the Furious Five was beginning to notice, especially Viper, who stared at Po going through the motions for a few minutes one day before quickly having to return to her own training after getting reprimanded by Shifu.

Eventually, Viper felt that she really needed to do something if they were going to bring Po back to normal, so a little while after another training session, she quickly met with the rest of the Five, who were currently having lunch inside the palace kitchen.

"Guys, I think something's really wrong with Po." she said as she slithered in to the room.

"Well, obviously. Poor guy looks like a zombie out there." said Mantis.

"Do you think he probably still blames himself for what happened a few days ago?"

"Most likely, but it's been a few days since then. Wouldn't it be better just for him to let it go, though? Holding on to that kind of guilt isn't healthy, especially for someone like him." said Tigress.

"Either way, we really need to do something for him and quick if we want to have the old Po back." said Viper.

"What do you want us to do, then?" asked Crane, looking like he was interested in helping.

"I think I have an idea, but-"

Before Viper could share her idea, she was suddenly interrupted when Po walked into the room, pausing once he positioned himself between Tigress and Monkey.

"Oh, hey Po. How's it going?" asked Mantis, adopting a cheerful demeanor in an attempt to get through to the panda.

Po ignored Mantis, choosing instead to focus on all of the Furious Five at once, clearing his throat before speaking up.

"Good, you're all here. I have a bit of an announcement to make."

"What kind of announcement?" asked Tigress, confused as she wondered exactly what was going through Po's mind at that moment.

"Well, um…here's the thing. I've been thinking for the last few days, ever since the last bandit attack."

Both Crane and Viper made an attempt to interject, but before they could do so, Po held up his paw, and the two of them remained silent, respecting Po's wishes.

"I know what you guys were about to say, and I appreciate that you're all willing to stick up for me despite what I did. It's still my fault, though. I got five people hurt because I was stupid enough to want to make a dramatic entrance."

The Furious Five listened intently as Po slowly breathed in and out, trying to keep himself from choking up. What the Five heard Po say next, though, was something that they would have never expected to hear.

"That's why I've made the decision to leave the Valley of Peace, effective immediately."


	3. Chapter 3

So, I was planning on updating something else today, but I went to go see KFP3 again (still an awesome movie, by the way). I got so into it this time, I really wanted to put another chapter out while I was still amped up after the movie. Unfortunately, it didn't exactly happen that way, but I think I'm still amped enough to get through this.

* * *

"What?!"

Po winced, knowing that the Five were most likely not going to like his decision, but it still hurt anyway to see their reactions.

"How could you just leave us like this?" asked Viper, her expression showing just how hurt she was at this new revelation.

"Yeah Po, we've told you a million times that what happened that day wasn't your fault! Why can't you realize that?" asked Mantis, getting back to his feet after being blown away by the panda's decision.

"I do realize that, Mantis! Believe me, I do. This isn't about whether them getting hurt was my fault or not, though."

"Then what is it?" asked Tigress, curious to see what reasoning Po had.

"It's me, okay?" yelled Po, shocking everyone else into silence.

"What do you mean, Po?" asked Viper, confused as she wondered what he was talking about.

Po sighed, closing his eyes for a few moments before returning his focus to the Five in front of him.

"Look, even with all of the hard times that I've had ever since I started living here at the Jade Palace, like with taking on Tai Lung…all of the difficult training…heck, even trying to prove myself to you guys, this has been the most awesome times I've ever had in my life."

"Don't you realize what you'd be leaving behind, though? What about us, huh? You're one of the best friends that we've ever had. Isn't that right, guys?" asked Crane.

There were some murmurs of assent from the others, including Tigress, albeit reluctantly.

As for Po, though, he couldn't help but smile as he shook his head in amusement.

"You guys are great. I don't know if I've said this to you guys in a while or not, but I seriously love you guys."

Practically every member of the Furious Five looked down at their currently untouched meals, realizing that at this point there was probably no chance that they were going to change his mind. Still, the five of them were all conditioned never to give up in the face of long odds, so as they looked at each other, trying to see if anyone else would have had an idea to convince Po to stay, Po continued to explain his reasoning behind leaving.

"Now, I like being who I am…just a normal panda with a goose for a dad, who happens to be a kung fu master. I want to be more than that, though. I want to be a Dragon Warrior that you guys can be proud of…that Master Shifu can be proud of…even Master Oogway as well! And I can't be that if I'm going to make those stupid mistakes like I did that day and end up getting people hurt."

"Like your dad." said Tigress.

Po face fell, as he was forced to remember what he went through with his dad injured and nearly dying.

"I don't want to get anyone else hurt. And I can only do that by stopping myself from treating everything like it's an action movie."

"Well, why don't you just do it now? It shouldn't be that hard."

"You don't understand, Mantis! When you've grown up in this kind of world, where your village is protected at pretty much all times of the day by a team of kick-butt martial arts masters, you tend to think the world of them, especially at the age that I was. All you want to do is be just like them and live out those kinds of dreams."

Po fell silent, watching the diminutive kung-fu master as he realized that the panda did in fact have a point.

"Isn't there anything that we can do to convince you to stay?" asked Viper, her expression hovering between acceptance and denial as she tried to figure out something that could get Po to stay.

"Wait, what about Master Shifu? I'm sure he has a way." said Crane as he looked towards Viper.

"I think that you'll have to look someplace else."

Everyone's heads whipped around towards the door to reveal Master Shifu himself standing in the doorway. The Furious Five immediately got up from their seats and bowed to the red panda, remaining standing as he walked towards the table.

"What do you mean, Master Shifu, when you said that we'd have to look someplace else?" asked Tigress.

Shifu paused for a few seconds, taking a bite out of one of the dumplings on the table and swallowing it before answering.

"The Dragon Warrior has already confided in me recently about his desire to leave the Valley. While it is true that I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of losing a capable hand like Po here, I could understand him wanting to become a better kung-fu master who knows right from wrong. Besides, you five are more than capable of handling things while he's gone."

Each of the Five expressions darkened as they realized that their one chance at getting Po to stay was on the Dragon Warrior's side. However, Monkey soon noticed something odd with what Shifu said, and felt that he needed to point it out.

"Forgive me for asking, Master Shifu, but 'while he's gone'? What do you mean by that?"

"Well, I'm not staying away forever! I'm…just staying away until I know that I can efficiently protect the valley without the risk of getting innocent people hurt." said Po.

"But that's impossible! There's no way to completely remove innocent people from this kind of equation!" said Crane.

"That is true that it's completely impossible for innocents to remain out of danger one hundred percent of the time, Master Crane. However, it is possible to remove them from this equation you speak of most of the time. Am I right?" asked Master Shifu as he turned towards Po.

"Yeah, that was my idea. Besides, I don't think I'd ever get to that kind of heights, at least for a very long time. I'd miss you guys too much as well."

Po sighed as he watched the downcast looks of the Furious Five, realizing exactly what he was doing to them by leaving.

"I'm sorry to dump all of this on you at once, you guys, but I think it's for the best, at least for the safety of the Valley and all of China."

The room soon fell silent again as the Furious Five registered what exactly was happening in front of them.

"W-what about your dad? What's he going to think?" asked Monkey.

Po paused, realizing that he forgot about that factor. Sighing, he looked off into the distance wistfully for a few moments before turning back towards Monkey.

"I'd love to, but I think that my dad would probably come with me even if I tried to tell him not to. The fact that he's still injured just makes it worse!"

Monkey fell silent, unable to look at Po as he thought about what the panda said.

"So…isn't there anything we can do to get you to stay?" asked Viper once again, now mostly sure of the answer despite really wanting to hear it from the panda's mouth.

Instead of speaking, Po simply shook his head, confirming Viper's suspicions as much as she didn't want to believe it.

"Well, if that is what you wish, I'm not going to stop you. I do have one thing that I wish to say, though."

Tigress walked over to where Po stood and gave him a hug, surprising everyone else in the room with a display of affection that they haven't ever really seen out of her.

"Be safe, Po. We shall await your return, whenever that may be."

Po, caught off guard by the sudden hug, just stood there awkwardly, looking at the others in the room with mild confusion on his face. To his surprise, though, the rest of the Five joined Tigress in the embrace of Po.

"We're gonna miss you, buddy." said Crane, sniffling as he wrapped his wings around the panda.

Po listened as the others gave their own form of a goodbye to him, a tear falling from his eye as he realized just how much he was going to miss these guys.

When Po was finally released from the Five's embrace, Po turned towards Master Shifu, who greeted Po with a bow.

"As much as I have sometimes…wondered what Master Oogway was thinking when he chose you as the Dragon Warrior that day…"

Shifu immediately suppressed a shiver, remembering what he considered as one of the worst days of his life.

"I have eventually realized that, while you still have a ways to go before you realize your full potential, you have proven to all of us that Oogway wasn't completely mad when he chose you."

"Uh…thanks?" said Po, slightly confused.

Master Shifu gave a small smile before continuing on.

"Either way, it has been an honor to be your teacher. I'm not going to lie, it has been tough. But it has also been an interesting experience as well."

Po paused, staring at Master Shifu as he tried not to tear up. Eventually, though, he allowed a choked sob to come through before he quickly bowed himself.

"Thank you, Master Shifu."

"And I must let it be known to you that the Jade Palace will always remain open to you, no matter the circumstances. Consider it my gift to you, Dragon Warrior."

This new gift made it even tougher for Po to keep himself together. A few more tears managed to fall before Po finally was forced to excuse himself so that the others wouldn't see him cry.

As he ran into the student quarters and began collecting everything he wanted to take with him on his journey, he was desperately trying to keep himself together, but the longer he took, the tougher it was for him to remain composed.

"Don't cry, Po. You're tougher than this. You're a kung-fu master, and you're gonna be so much better after this!" he said to himself as he packed his bedroll.

Po paused for a moment as he looked at his action figures standing on a shelf nearby. He picked up the Tigress action figure, moving it around in his hand as he wondered what to do with it.

After giving it some thought, Po soon realized that if he was going to grow up like he said he would, he would need to get rid of these things so, as much as he was going to miss his figures, he shoved them off of the shelf with a yell, the figures all landing inside a garbage can.

"I'm sorry, you guys." Po said quietly before continuing to pack.

* * *

Eventually, Po was ready to finally go. The Dragon Warrior put on a large green vest that he purchased recently from down in the village to use as his traveling clothes.

After hefting his pack on to his back, Po grabbed a straw hat that he had also purchased during the same trip. He thought about putting it on for a few moments before deciding to wait until before he left.

Once he was sufficiently ready, Po sighed, taking a look around his room and realizing that it was probably going to be years before he was going to see this room again.

Sighing, Po turned his head away before shutting the door to his room, officially closing the chapter on his life.

As Po walked back towards where everyone else was, he reflected on the time he spent inside the Jade Palace. He clearly remembered the battle with Tai Lung, but all of the training sessions, all of the time he got to spend with the Five and Shifu…those memories flooded into his consciousness.

Po was about to head back into the main hall to rejoin the others for the final time, only to be surprised to find them all on the steps heading into the palace, watching as Po walked towards them.

"Well…I guess this is goodbye."

"Not forever, though. Right?" asked Viper.

"Right. I don't know how long, but I promise I shall return to the Valley someday."

Everyone soon fell silent, before everyone immediately bowed to Po.

"We'll miss you, Po." said Monkey as he returned to attention.

"Yeah, it's never going to be the same without you." said Mantis.

"Thanks guys. I'm gonna miss you, too."

Po placed his straw hat on top of his head before bowing to everyone else. After a few seconds, Po straightened up once more and began heading down the Thousand Steps, waving goodbye to everyone for as long as he could manage.

Eventually, though, Shifu and the Furious Five disappeared from Po's view, and he faced forwards, ready to begin a new era.

Reaching back into his pack, Po grabbed a walking stick, placing it on the ground once he finally reached the bottom of the steps.

As Po walked through the marketplace, with only the light *clack* of his walking stick on the stone preventing the marketplace from being completely silent, Po paused in front of his dad's noodle shop.

With how late it was, Po assumed that his dad must have been sleeping, no doubt nearly recovered from the arrow in his side and ready to resume work. Po hoped that his dad wouldn't be too mad that he didn't tell him about him leaving, but he knew it was for his own safety.

"I'm sorry, dad." he said quietly, another tear falling from his face before he turned away from the noodle shop, heading through the gateway out of the Valley as he finally began his journey to find himself.


	4. Chapter 4

Ten years have passed since that fateful day. Ten long years since the Dragon Warrior had left the Valley of Peace.

The first few years were tough for the inhabitants of the valley. After news spread about the Dragon Warrior's disappearance, the bandits stepped up their attacks on the valley, a renewed sense of vigor around them as they realized that with Po no longer around, it was definitely easier for them to pull off raids.

Thankfully, though, the villagers still had the Furious Five to protect them, although at first even they had some trouble keeping up with the long string of attacks on the village.

In an attempt to cover for Po's absence, Shifu decided to take a bit more of an active role in defending the valley, which began to turn the tide for the masters of the Jade Palace.

After a series of attacks were thwarted by the combined might of Shifu and the Five, they soon began to slow down as the bandits soon began to realize that they were back to how things were when Po was still in the Valley.

Once that fact was discovered, Shifu returned to his grandmaster duties, and the Furious Five began to be able to handle attacks on the village on their own.

Now, the sheer number of bandit attacks weren't the only reason why the Furious Five had so much trouble keeping up with them at first. No, one of the bigger reasons was the absence of the Dragon Warrior himself.

The Five were definitely more than capable of working together to defeat any obstacles in front of them with just the five of them, but by the time Po left, they had already worked with him for quite a while, and the kung-fu techinques that involved Po were pretty much ingrained into their memories at that point, so breaking that sort of muscle memory proved to be difficult for them.

Thankfully, though, they eventually managed to readjust their fighting styles back to even before Po was chosen as the Dragon Warrior, and that helped stem the tide against the bandit scourge.

* * *

 **Present day (10 years after Po left)**

One day, after yet another bandit attack was thwarted, the Five sat inside the Jade Palace's kitchen, eating their meals of tofu and bean buns before they began their normal day of training.

The five kung-fu masters sat and ate silently, Po's absence weighing on their minds as they all noticed just how quiet it's become since he left.

When someone finally spoke up, though, they said something that none of the Furious Five really expected one of them to bring up.

"Man, I really miss Po's cooking. That panda can cook a bowl of noodles like there was no tomorrow!"

Tigress looked over to where the voice came from and narrowed her eyes slightly when she noticed that it was Mantis who was speaking.

"Really, Mantis? It's been five years since the Dragon Warrior left the valley, and now you mention the fact that you miss his cooking?"

"Well, yeah! I mean, who wouldn't when you're stuck eating tofu every day?"

"I don't know, it doesn't taste so bad to me. I think I might have gotten used to eating this again." said Viper as she prodded her block of tofu with her chopsticks.

"Well of course you would." said Mantis, rolling his eyes, which earned him a glare from the serpent master.

"Come on, Mantis. We are going to have to get used to eating these again unless you want to drain the palace's funds to hire a professional chef." said Crane.

"Can we?" asked Mantis, looking at Crane hopefully.

Unfortunately for Mantis, the look on Crane's face told him exactly what the avian thought of his question.

The room soon fell silent again as the Five continued to eat. Eventually, though, one of them spoke up again, wanting to change the subject before the awkwardness became too much to bear.

"Hey, why don't we go check on Mr. Ping and see how he's doing?" asked Monkey, looking around the room to see who was willing to go with him.

"We've got training later, Monkey. I don't think Master Shifu's going to be happy if we skip that to see Po's dad." said Tigress.

"Well, what about after? I'm sure that he'd love to see us again."

Monkey looked around the room once more, eagerly awaiting the others' answers.

"I don't suppose why not. I'm sure he wouldn't mind a visit." said Mantis.

Everyone else willingly agreed to Monkey's plan, although some of them were a bit reluctant considering the plan they had in place, with two of the Five going down each time, the pair rotating after each visit.

You see, the day after Po left the valley, his dad was opening up the noodle shop as usual, unaware that his son was probably somewhere far away at this point. It took the combined efforts of both Crane and Viper to explain to Mr. Ping exactly what happened with Po (despite not knowing the full reasons as to why), and even then Mr. Ping was noticeably distraught after hearing that his only son had left without even saying goodbye to him.

Thankfully, though, once the three of them sat down and had a nice long talk over some tea, Mr. Ping finally began to calm down. He was still pretty upset over Po leaving, but now he understood that Po had a good reason for not telling him.

"So, who wants to go down there this time?" asked Monkey.

"I think it's probably Mantis and Crane's turn, right?" asked Viper as she looked around the room at the others.

"Yeah, I believe that's correct." said Tigress. "Anyway, we should probably be getting to the Training Hall. Master Shifu is expecting us."

Even though not everyone was finished with their meals, the Furious Five stood up from their chairs, pushing them back under the table before heading off to the Training Hall for another hard day.

* * *

After their training was finally completed for the day, the Five went their separate ways, looking for some things to pass the time before dinner came.

As for Mantis and Crane, though, they were busy making their way down the Thousand Steps, or in the case, flying down the steps, with Mantis hanging on to Crane's hat as they sped down the normally daunting staircase.

Once they reached the bottom, the two of them didn't waste any time, heading straight for the noodle shop while greeting some of the villagers who had noticed their presence.

Eventually, they found themselves in front of the shop, and they soon noticed that it was bustling, which came as a bit of a surprise to them, as they knew better.

Unfortunately, Po's exit had ended up coinciding with a drop in attendance at Mr. Ping's shop, as most of the business he had received was partly because of the fact that the Dragon Warrior was his son.

The fact that Mr. Ping was noticeably more downcast didn't help, either, which proved just how odd it was to the two masters that the shop was suddenly full to bursting.

Crane and Mantis soon walked into the noodle shop, and they were immediately greeted by Mr. Ping himself, who looked noticeably hurried.

"Oh good! I'm glad you two are here! I really need some help with serving the customers." he said as he ushered the two of them towards the back.

"I'm surprised to see this place so busy, Mr. Ping. What's the occasion?" asked Crane.

"It's the Chinese New Year, remember? It's one of my busiest days here!"

"Oh, right. I almost forgot." said Crane.

Both Mantis and Crane traded looks, realizing that it was going to be a long day.

* * *

And a long day it turned out to be, as the shop didn't even begin to clear out until sundown. Noticeably worn out, both Mantis and Crane collapsed on to one of the seats once the last customer finally cleared out for the day, only to be surprised when two bowls of soup were placed in front of them.

"What's this?" asked Mantis as he turned to face Mr. Ping.

"Just a thank you for helping an old goose like me out today."

"Oh no, we couldn't." said Crane, attempting to push the bowls away with his wing, only to be stopped by Mr. Ping's wing.

"Please…eat. It's the least I can do, even with you all helping me through the dark times I had after Po left."

Crane paused as he looked at Mr. Ping's face. While he did have minor signs in his expression that showed that he still missed Po dearly, everything else showed Crane that he was finally getting to the point where Mr. Ping was finally able to accept that his son was no longer with them.

Both Mantis and Crane began eating the soup they were given, albeit reluctantly, which caused Mr. Ping to smile happily as he watched.

Eventually, once they were finally finished, the two masters stood up as they prepared to head back to the palace.

"Well, we should be getting going. Thanks for the soup, Mr. Ping!" said Mantis.

"Yeah, thanks."

As Mantis and Crane flew off, Mr. Ping waved goodbye for a moment before cupping his wings around his beak to project his voice.

"Come and visit again!"

Even though he was unsure as to whether they heard him, Mr. Ping lowered his wings back to his sides, his expression faltering when he realized that he was alone again.

"Oh Po, please come back. Your daddy misses you dearly." he said to himself, wiping away a tear before getting to work closing down the shop for the night.

After returning to the Jade Palace, Crane and Mantis spent some time recounting their time spent in the marketplace with Mr. Ping before the Five retired to their bedrooms, going to sleep before another day began.

* * *

The next day soon came just like any others, with the sun shining brightly through the rice paper walls of the Furious Five's rooms. However, the calm of the morning was soon completely turned on its head, as the sound of the warning gong soon reverberated throughout the Student Quarters.

"Another attack?" asked Tigress to herself as she picked herself up out of her bedroll and headed out of her room.

As she made her way into the hallway, the rest of the Furious Five soon came out of their rooms after her.

"Isn't this like, the third bandit attack this week?" asked Mantis as he skittered along the floor.

The rest of the Five nodded as they realized the implications of what Mantis said, before Tigress spoke up.

"We'd better be careful out there. The bandits might be picking up their attacks again."

"We can't have that happening! We barely managed to push them back, even with Master Shifu's help!" said Viper.

"Let's not worry about that right now. Come on!"

Tigress gestured towards the exit of the Student Quarters, and the Five picked up speed, quickly heading towards the Steps once they've exited the building and bounding down the steps in their own ways.

Once the Five reached the bottom of the Steps, they immediately went into action, separating as they each took on their own group of bandits.

Tigress was managing to keep up pretty easily with the three crocs she was paired off with, dodging strikes with their weapons as she backed off towards one of the houses. Once she felt she was close enough, Tigress jumped upwards, bouncing off one of the walls and landing gracefully on one of the crocs' swords before lashing out with a backwards heel kick, sending the bandit flying.

After landing on her feet, Tigress adopted her normal fighting pose, her face stoic as she stared at the two remaining crocs.

"So, you guys think you can take me on? Bring it!"

Tigress raised her left hand above her head as she spoke before gesturing towards the bandits, who nervously traded looks before charging. Thankfully, though, Tigress was prepared for this kind of attack, as she effortlessly dodged the swipes from the crocs' weapons, transferring fluidly into a palm strike to one of the croc's jaws, the cracking noise telling Tigress that she'd successfully broken the croc's jaw.

Tigress immediately followed through on her palm strike, her paw remaining pressed up against the croc's jaw as she slammed the croc's head into the ground, successfully dazing it.

Although Tigress initially believed that the croc was down, she soon quickly realized that wasn't the case, so before they could get up, Tigress unleashed a vicious axe kick, the sheer force causing the croc to black out.

"Tigress, watch out!"

In her attempt to knock out the croc in front of her, Tigress forgot about the fact that there was still another croc that she hadn't already knocked out, and by the time Mantis shouted his warning, the croc was already a few feet from her, the sword in his hand as he prepared to strike.

However, fate intervened, as another croc suddenly flew into the croc behind Tigress, sending the attacker flying.

Tigress barely managed to dodge the two flying crocs, which gave her the chance to see where the original flying croc came from.

She soon noticed Mantis busy with two other bandits, landing multiple nerve strikes on both of the crocs, sending them down for the count as Mantis landed on his feet.

"Thanks for the save, Mantis!" she said as she prepared to rejoin the fight.

However, what Mantis said next wasn't something that she expected to hear.

"That wasn't me! I was busy taking care of these guys!" he said as he pointed towards the paralyzed bandits next to him.

Confused, Tigress looked around the area, thinking that one of the other Five must have tossed the croc that saved her. Unfortunately, the rest of them were too busy with their own bandits, but her eyes soon widened in surprise when she noticed that there was another in the marketplace with them.

His eyes were covered by a large straw hat, but Tigress soon noticed the black and white fur that covered the stranger's body as they remained inside a fighting pose, his left hand open in front of him while his right hand was closed into a fist by his side.

As she took in the sight of this new stranger that seemed vaguely familiar, one thought ran through Tigress's mind as the stranger cracked a croc's jaw with a single punch.

"Who is this man?"


	5. Chapter 5

"KYAHHH!"

As Tigress lashed out with a backfist, sending yet another croc bandit spinning, her mind was still on the sudden appearance of the mysterious black and white stranger.

While it appeared that he seemed to be on their side, considering how many bandits that he took out on his own, Tigress's instincts were screaming at her not to trust this newcomer, as he had done nothing to prove that he wasn't just going to betray them next chance he got.

As Tigress continued to work with the rest of the Furious Five to take down the bandits, she couldn't help but sneak peeks at the newcomer any time that she wasn't engaged with one of the crocs.

"What astonishing strength this guy has!" she thought to herself as she watched the newcomer drive one of the croc's snouts into his knee, stunning him before judo flipping the bulky croc over his shoulder and punching him in the face as he landed, successfully knocking the bandit out.

What surprised Tigress the most, though, was the anger radiating off of the newcomer. It was still pretty difficult for Tigress to tell exactly what kind of state the stranger was in thanks to the hat covering his eyes, but she did manage to get a good idea thanks to the clenched teeth as well as the fact that his movements were extremely tense.

"Tigress! Behind you!" yelled Viper as she took down another bandit with a tail strike.

Even though Tigress was still distracted by the newcomer's presence, this time she managed to catch the warning and turned around, barely dodging getting run through by a spear. However, just as she was about to disarm the croc and use the weapon against him, the croc was suddenly sent spinning, dropping to the ground a few seconds later completely knocked out.

Confused, Tigress suddenly caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye and reacted, rolling out of the way before brandishing her stolen spear in the direction of where she was originally standing.

To her surprise, though, it turned out to be the stranger, his arm outstretched for a few seconds before he moved his front foot back to his other foot. His hands moved in front of his stomach, palms facing down as he slowly breathed out. Eventually, after a few seconds of silence, the newcomer raised his head to face the Furious Five, his mouth a thin line as he returned his hands to his sides.

Thankfully, the croc that the newcomer took out turned out to be the last one, so as the pile of bodies littered the streets around them, the Furious Five grouped together, ready to confront this newcomer and see if he was a friend or foe.

"You there! Explain your presence here, or we will be forced to consider you as an enemy of the Valley and have you arrested!" said Tigress, keeping her guard up as she took in the sight of the newcomer.

"Tigress, be reasonable!" scolded Viper. "What if he's just someone passing through?"

"I don't know. This guy seems like he'd be capable of kicking someone's butt in no time flat." said Mantis, wary.

Tigress easily agreed with Mantis after seeing what the newcomer was capable of. He was pretty large on his own, but Tigress soon noticed that he looked impressively toned, no doubt due to very long hours of training. His hands looked pretty weathered, as Tigress could see some remnants of scar tissue dotting the top of the newcomer's fist, a sight that she was very intimately familiar with after spending time with the Ironwood Trees outside of the palace. She could also see some scars dotting the newcomer's chest and stomach area.

As she began to wonder just how the newcomer managed to earn all of those new scars, Tigress's eyes soon fell on the stranger's choice of clothing, as she saw that he had on a large green vest, and some patchwork pants, which the kung-fu master couldn't help but think looked vaguely familiar.

"Wait a minute. Anyone else think this guy seems kind of strangely familiar?" said Crane, voicing Tigress's thoughts.

"Yeah, he does look like a panda, but not like any kind of panda I've seen." said Viper, looking at the newcomer strangely as she tried to figure out the strange inkling in her mind.

"Stranger! Remove your hat." said Tigress, really wanting to get to the bottom of this mystery.

For a few seconds it looked like the stranger wouldn't follow through with Tigress's orders, as he remained standing where he was. However, just as she was about to warn him about the consequences, the panda reached up with one of his muscular arms and removed his hat as asked, revealing a single jade green eye staring at them. The other eye had long since closed, a jagged scar the culprit behind the newcomer no longer being able to see out of that one eye.

Everyone in the Furious Five was shocked as they took in the newcomer's appearance, the panda smiling as he watched the five kung-fu masters in front of him.

"Who…are you?" asked Tigress, unable to tear her eyes away from the scar on the newcomer's face.

Instead of answering Tigress's question, the panda opened his arms wide as he stepped forward, a small smile on his face.

"Don't you guys remember me?"

Tigress looked over at the other members of the Five, only to see looks on confusion on their faces. However, after her eyes once again landed on the jade green eye that still remained open on the newcomer's face, her own face soon lit up in recognition as she knew only one that had that kind of warm feeling in them.

"Po?"

The rest of the Five's eyes widened in surprise once they heard Tigress speak, but when they got a good look at the newcomer, they soon realized that she was right.

"Po? Is that really you?" asked Viper as she moved forwards to take a closer look.

"Of course! How many other pandas have you guys ever met in your life?" he asked, his smile still never leaving his face.

The Five stood there, each of them trying to register if they were seeing things or not, before they finally rushed forwards, knocking over Po as they hugged him.

"Oh my god, Po, I can't believe that you're back!" said Viper.

"Yeah Po, I was almost beginning to think you were never coming back!" said Mantis.

"I did promise you guys that this wasn't goodbye forever, right?"

"Well, it felt like forever! I mean, you've been gone for ten years!"

Po's expression immediately changed once he heard what Monkey said.

"Has it really been that long?" he asked, surprised.

"Yeah, it has." said Crane as the Five finally released Po.

"Wow. I kind of lost track of time after two years had passed. I guess time flies when you're training as hard as I've been." said Po as he managed to pull himself up to a sitting position.

"So, we really have to catch up sometime! We've done a lot in the past ten years." said Viper, looking excited as she slithered in front of Po.

"I'll join you guys later. Right now I should probably go and see my dad. Hopefully he won't hate me too much for abandoning him."

At the mention of Po's dad, both Crane and Mantis traded looks, a fact that wasn't lost on Po as he noticed it pretty easily.

"Something wrong, you guys?"

Mantis and Crane jumped, not expecting Po to have noticed the glances.

"Oh, nothing! Why don't you go visit him and we'll see you up at the palace." said Mantis, as he attempted to change the subject as quickly as possible.

Po, however, was undeterred, and the unimpressed look he gave Mantis ended up causing Crane to finally tell the truth.

"Look Po, I'm glad you're back and all, but your dad was in a bad place after you left all those years ago. He missed you, Po, and you leaving without saying anything to him just made things worse. It took the five of us at least a couple months to help him get through all of that and finally get back to being his normal self. At least…as close to normal as we could get."

Po's face fell when he heard what Crane had to say, realizing that the avian was right. Po knew quite well it was for Mr. Ping's own safety to not tell him where he was going, but it still hurt knowing his choice still affected his dad the way it did.

"I need to go." he said, a determined look on his face as he stood up and started making his way towards the noodle shop.

Before he could get far, though, he was suddenly stopped by a wing on his shoulder. Turning his head, he found that Crane was looking at him, trying to read what his thoughts were just from his expression.

"Are you sure you want to do this now? There's no telling what he'll think when he sees you again."

Po was determined to find a way to get his father to forgive him for leaving, so he simply nodded and walked forwards, Crane's wing slipping off of the muscular panda's shoulder as the avian kung-fu master watched him go.

* * *

As Po made his way over to his father's noodle shop, his mind began to wander as he tried to think of what to say first to him.

Obviously, that turned out to be tough, as what do you expect to say to someone you haven't seen in ten years? "Hi dad, sorry I've been gone for so long?"

Po sighed, realizing that this was probably going to be pretty difficult for him.

Outside of the Furious Five rounding up the bandits to get sent off to Chorh-Gom, the village was pretty silent, as most of its inhabitants had only just gotten up before the attack happened. However, while most people would have expected things to return to normal after the bandits were taken down, it wasn't the case this time.

Po could very easily sense the stares that he was being given by the villagers, and it made him really nervous. Then again, seeing a bulky panda that can only see through one eye suddenly show up in the village out of nowhere would probably make anyone feel a little strange, so Po assumed that must be at least part of the reason. Still, Po couldn't help but feel a little awkward with the increasing number of villagers looking at him, so he placed his straw hat back on his head, tipping the brim down so it hid his jade green eye as he walked.

Eventually, Po found himself in front of his dad's infamous noodle shop. As he took in the ornate decorations around the shop's entrance, his mind began to wander a bit as he reflected on his years away.

Po admittedly was worried about his dad during the first few years away from the village. Because of the way he left, Po spent most of his first couple years trying to convince himself that his dad wouldn't be upset at him leaving, especially with the Five there to hopefully help him through it, but in the back of his mind he knew that his dad was probably going to be pretty upset. After hearing what Crane had to say about his dad, though, it just made him feel even worse.

"I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, Dad." he said to himself before breathing in and out to calm himself down as he walked inside.

Thankfully, with it still being pretty early in the morning, there were no customers around to get in the way, so he easily managed to spot his dad inside of the kitchen, preparing his first batch of what Po assumed to be his Secret Ingredient Soup. Po couldn't help but smile a bit after finally being able to see his dad after ten long years, but his smile soon faltered as he prepared to finally make his presence known.

"Excuse me."

"We're closed! Come back later in the day!" said Mr. Ping, sounding pretty irritable.

Po's heart broke hearing his dad's tone of voice, thinking that he must have been part of the reason why he was acting this way. Still, though, he needed to get the weight off of his chest, so he stepped forwards, determined to find a way to get through to the goose.

"Please. I've been on the road for a long time, and I'm really hungry. I can't wait until you open."

Mr. Ping paused as he was busy cutting up some radishes, sighing before finally speaking again.

"Fine. Have a seat and I'll bring you something."

What Po said was technically true, considering the past month was spent heading back to the Valley. Honestly, Po was surprised himself how far away he had managed to get during his journey. This made getting back very tough, but Po knew just how worth it this would be in the end.

Po did as his dad asked and sat down on one of the benches nearby, ignoring the small groan of protest the bench gave as he was used to having to deal with throwing his new bulk around.

After a few more minutes, Mr. Ping sat a bowl of the soup that he was preparing in front of Po before returning to the kitchen to finish up his preparations.

"Thanks!" Po yelled towards the kitchen, earning a grumble in reply.

As Po ate his soup quietly, savoring the taste he missed so much, his thoughts soon turned to the current emotional state that his dad was in, and he began to wonder just what the reasoning might be behind why he was so irritable today.

"I know Crane said that him and the rest of the Five were able to help him through the dark times he went through after I left the Valley, but what if those dark times never really completely left?" he thought to himself as he absentmindedly chewed on some of the noodles.

Eventually, though, Po soon realized that he needed to do something now before his dad ended up kicking him out of his shop for freeloading, so after swallowing, Po pushed his seat out from under the table and walked over to the kitchen, looking slightly to the left of Mr. Ping so that he could get some time to think of what to say before his dad noticed that something was wrong.

"Excuse me, can I ask you something?" he said, adjusting his hat so that he didn't blow his cover immediately and ruin his plan to apologize to his dad.

"Yes? Is there something wrong with your noodles?" he asked, almost ready to launch into an explanation as to why there would be something wrong before Po suddenly interrupted.

"No, the noodles are fine! Frankly, they're delicious. I just have one question."

Mr. Ping remained silent as he turned his head towards the panda, which told Po that the goose was listening.

"Look, I'm sorry to pry into your personal business, but I noticed that you seem a little down today, like there's something that happened in your personal life that you didn't like. May I ask what happened?"

Mr. Ping paused, his eyes widened in surprise at how on the nose Po was about his issues, but he remained silent.

"It's fine if you don't want to talk. It's none of my business anyway." said Po, thinking that his dad didn't want to talk.

However, before he could return to his seat and finish his bowl, he heard a heavy sigh from behind him. Turning back around, Po noticed the downcast look on his dad's face and his heart simply broke.

"I'm apologize for being so down in the dumps, sir. I've just…I'm not sure if you've heard any stories about the Dragon Warrior, have you?"

Po nodded, and Mr. Ping continued speaking.

"Well, it turns out he was my son. His name was Po, and he was the best thing that has ever been brought into my life."

Po's heart warmed at the thought that his dad still loved him, even after all these years away.

"Anyway, long story short, Po disappeared from the valley ten years ago from yesterday, and I still miss him dearly. The kung-fu masters up at the Jade Palace did tell me why he had to leave, but he never told me, and ever since then I've always wondered exactly why. Why didn't he tell me?"

Po couldn't help but look away as he attempted to hold back a tear from falling out of his eye, which unfortunately didn't work, but thankfully Mr. Ping didn't notice, and Po turned back to him a few seconds later, suppressing a hitch in his throat as he continued on.

"I'm sorry to hear about that. If I may be somewhat curious, if this son of yours would ever return to this valley, is there something that you would want to say to him?"

Although Mr. Ping was slightly put off by the invasive question this stranger gave him, he decided that there was no reason not to answer it for him.

"Well, I would probably tell him that I wish he would have told me that he was leaving. As I've said, I've never figured out exactly why."

Po's face fell as he heard what his dad had to say, and he was beginning to think that he should probably leave before he made things worse. What he had to say next, though, was something that even he didn't expect after what he thought during his journey, as well as what Crane told him.

"However, he is still my son, and I have always loved him no matter the circumstances. Even if he didn't come back for another twenty years, I would have never forgotten him."

Mr. Ping paused for a moment, looking away from Po for a second before looking back at him.

"And if he decides to finally come back, I would like to tell him that I will always welcome him back with open arms, because he's my son and I love him dearly."

Finally finished with his explanation, Mr. Ping looked over at Po and saw that the panda was indeed crying.

"Are you alright, sir? I didn't mean to overwhelm you or anything. I'm just an old goose who misses his son."

"No, I'm fine." said Po as he wiped at his eye with his arm, trying to recover from the emotional rollercoaster he just went through during his dad's explanation.

Eventually, though, Po managed to calm himself down, and after taking a deep breath, Po knew that it was time to enact the last step of his plan.

"I'm sorry."

"What do you have to be sorry for? It's not your fault!" said Mr. Ping, reaching out with a wing to pat the muscular panda on the arm.

"No, it is my fault."

Mr. Ping looked at Po, wondering what he meant, as Po slowly let out another breath.

"I have a confession to make."

Without waiting for an answer, Po reached up and removed his hat, slowly bringing it down in front of his face before finally bringing it to a stop in front of his chest.

Po smiled warmly as he watched Mr. Ping's shocked expression, the goose realizing just now who was under the hat.

"Hi, dad. It's me…Po."


	6. Chapter 6

"Po?"

Mr. Ping reached out with his wing to touch Po, his mind trying to process if he wasn't just seeing things. However, when his wing met skin, he soon realized that what was in front of him was all too real.

"Yeah dad, it's me."

Mr. Ping immediately climbed over the counter, not even caring enough to go through the doorway, before he finally wrapped himself around Po's midsection in a hug.

"Po! You've finally come back!"

"Yeah, I have. I really missed you, dad."

"If you missed me, then why would you leave without telling me then?" asked Mr. Ping as he finally released the panda, plopping back on to the ground.

Po sighed, realizing that he probably would have had to answer that question eventually.

"Look, I'm really sorry for not telling you, dad, but it was for your own good. What I was doing over the past ten years was one of the most dangerous things I've ever experienced. I'm sure you can probably get the picture by the way I look now."

Po held out his arms to show his dad all of the scars that he's accrued over the years before continuing to speak.

"Anyway, if I knew you as well as I think I did back then, you would try to go with me even if I said no, and I can't have you being in that kind of danger. I'd never forgive myself if you got hurt."

Mr. Ping was about to try and argue his point, only to fall silent when he realized that Po was right. Ever since he found Po inside that radish basket back when he was a cub, all he ever wanted to do was keep his son safe, even if it meant putting his own life at risk. He loved Po too much to do any less.

"I'm sorry, Po. Thank you for helping me understand your reasons." said Mr. Ping as he lightly hugged Po once more.

"It's fine, dad. Frankly, I should be apologizing for ditching you all those years ago."

"What did you even do all those years, anyway? I've noticed you've changed quite a bit. You kind of stink, too." said Mr. Ping, clutching his nose as he finished speaking.

Po, confused, sniffed at his armpit for a second before realizing that he did indeed smell pretty bad. The fact that the clothes that he was currently wearing were the same clothes he wore when he left ten years ago didn't help, either.

"Sorry, dad. I guess when you're traveling as long as I did you don't really have a whole lot of chances to keep clean. I do remember cleaning myself at least a few times, though."

"Apparently not recently. Come on, let's get you into the tub right away!" said Mr. Ping, holding his breath as he quickly shoved Po towards the alleyway behind the shop.

"Is the basin even still there, dad?" asked Po as he continued to be pushed along the ground.

"Of course it is! I've been using it to clean my own laundry, so why wouldn't I still be keeping it around?"

"Oh…right." said Po, slightly embarrassed as he realized his question was pretty obvious.

As the two of them finally made it to the alley in question, Po soon noticed that the basin was in fact there as promised, and the soap and brush were there just as they've always been every time he used it to clean himself.

"I've just finished some of my laundry a little while before you came in, so hopefully the water should still be pretty warm. I'll come by and check on you once I get the first batch of soup done, so you'd better be getting yourself clean back here!"

"Okay, dad." said Po sarcastically, although he couldn't help but smile after seeing Mr. Ping go into what he referred to as 'Dad Mode'.

"Good. I'll see you in a bit." said Mr. Ping, giving Po a warm smile before returning to the front of the store.

Once Po was finally alone in the alley, he decided that it was probably best not to wait around, so he picked up the box of soap and poured some of it into the basin, watching as the bubbles soon began to bloom out from the calm water.

Eventually, once he was satisfied with the amount of bubbles (which turned out to be quite a bit), Po removed his vest and leg wrappings. Po quickly scanned the alley around him, hoping that no one was watching before removing his pants and quickly jumping in with almost blinding speed compared to his normal walking speed.

"Wow, this is still pretty warm." commented Po before relaxing, as he began scrubbing with the brush at everything he could manage to reach.

Po began to slowly relax even more as he felt all of the dirt and grime he'd accumulated over the years drop slowly off of his body into the water.

"Man, this feels good." he said to himself, eventually just deciding to rest for a bit and let himself soak in the water.

Unfortunately, the warm water didn't exactly last too much longer after that, so as soon as Po began to feel the water cool down, he decided that he should probably finish things before the water cooled down.

Before he could get too far, though, Mr. Ping suddenly popped in, nearly dropping the bundle of clothes he had in his hands as he took a look at the unclothed panda.

"Oh, uh…hi dad." he said, nervously waving as he turned around to face his dad.

"Po! How did you even get all of those scars? I didn't expect you to have this many!" he said in shock.

Po paused for a moment before checking around his body as he soon noticed the sheer number of scars that he had, even on his back and other parts of his body that were initially covered by the vest.

"Um…I'd like to tell you, dad, but it's secret…kung-fu…business." he said, quickly thinking up an excuse to avoid the question.

Po had no intentions of ever telling his dad the real reason he had all of those scars. To be honest, even Po himself didn't want to think about the reason, either, but it was somewhat of a reminder of how far he'd come since he left way back then.

Mr. Ping looked at Po for a few seconds, having seen through Po's poor attempt at dodging the question, but the goose soon figured that it was probably best not to try and pry the answer out of him, considering he didn't want to drive Po away so soon after just getting him back.

"Okay, if you don't want to tell me, that's fine. I can understand that you'd want to keep your secrets."

"Really?" asked Po, clearly not expecting his dad to drop the subject so easily.

"Yes, really. I may be your father, but I know some people like you deserve to have at least some secrets."

"Wow. Thanks, dad."

"You're welcome, son. Although I do have one condition, though."

"What's that?"

Instead of answering, Mr. Ping simply pointed to his left eye, closing it to emphasize what he was asking for. At first, Po had no idea what his dad was talking about, but then he soon realized that he was actually talking about.

"Oh, this?" he asked as he pointed to his no longer open eye.

Mr. Ping nodded, and Po figured there was no reason to hide this one, considering this had nothing to do with all of the other scars.

"This was from a bird attack."

Mr. Ping gave Po a look that said that he didn't believe him, which forced Po to explain himself.

"I'm being honest, dad! I ran into Master Hawk about five years ago. Let's just say he wasn't pleased with me breaking in to his camp."

Once again, Mr. Ping gave Po a look, this time showing that he was disappointed.

"It was an accident! I was chasing some bandits nearby, and I ended up tripping on a rock and crashing through a tent right into his lap."

Po paused once again to look at his dad, who still didn't look like he believed him.

"The guy had really sharp talons! They hurt like Gods know what!"

Finally, when it seemed like he was never going to convince Mr. Ping, his dad finally dropped all pretense and walked forwards with the pile of clothes, dropping them on a table nearby.

"Well, at least you're alright, Po. Just be careful next time, alright?"

"Alright, dad."

Mr. Ping smiled before turning towards the pile of clothes he placed down and pointed towards them.

"I brought you a new pair of clothes to wear. Those clothes that you came back in really need a good washing…or maybe I should just throw them out."

Po decided to ignore the comment about his choice of clothing in favor of looking at the pile of new clothes his dad brought out, which turned out to be a simple pair of dark blue colored pants with a bright red vest for contrast. Po also noticed some new leg wrappings as well, which came as a bit of a surprise as he turned towards Mr. Ping.

"Dad, I thought you said you were going to work on getting that soup done."

Mr. Ping chuckled a bit before deciding to speak.

"Well, that was only partly true. I did manage to get the soup done, but I had some free time after that, so I decided to treat you to something special. I'm sure they would be a lot more useful than those ratty things that you were wearing before."

At this, Mr. Ping gave a look of disgust to the pile of clothes that Po was originally wearing. Although Po had grown a little attached to the original clothes he had on, he did agree with his dad that now was as good a time as ever to finally make the change, so after drying his hands off, he grabbed the vest in the pile, feeling the fabric between his fingers before turning towards his dad.

"Thanks so much, dad. You really didn't have to get me these, though. I wouldn't have minded just washing my old clothes again."

"Oh, it's no problem, Po. You do have to at least look somewhat presentable when you're defending the valley."

Mr. Ping went over to the pile of old clothes, picking them up and holding them at arm's length as he prepared to throw them away for good. Before he could do so, though, Po suddenly spoke up.

"I really think I should get something for you, though. It's not fair for you to give me something as awesome as this and not expect something comparable in return."

Mr. Ping was slightly caught off guard by Po's offer, as he wasn't really expecting anything from the panda in return. Frankly, he was giving it as more of a service than an actual present, but that didn't stop Po from trying.

"Oh no, Po, you don't have to give me anything. I'm just happy having you back with me."

Po considered for a moment just letting his dad have his way, but he remained firm in his decision.

"No, I think I want to get something special for you. Not just for this, but for the ten years I've been away."

Mr. Ping stood there, overwhelmed as he watched his son smile at him.

"Thank you, Po." he said, almost choking up before managing to calm himself down with a clearing of his throat.

"I'll leave you alone to get dressed. It's almost time to open up, so I'll be in the shop if you need me."

"Maybe I can give you a hand up there!" said Po, his eyes widening as the idea popped into his head. "I'm sure you could use some of it, especially after so long."

It took a few moments for Mr. Ping to register what Po meant with his last sentence, but eventually it managed to get through.

"Thank you for the offer, son, but I've had help whenever things were busy before."

"Really? From who?"

"The Furious Five, of course! Now, it was only two of them at a time, but six hands are better than two, I suppose."

Po couldn't help but smile, deciding that he wanted to thank everyone from the Five for helping his dad out.

"Anyway, I'll be fine down here for today. You go up to the Palace and catch up with Master Shifu and the others. I'm sure they're eager to see you again."

Although Po was admittedly reluctant to just let his dad handle all the customers on his own, the look Mr. Ping gave him convinced him that he was going to be alright.

"Okay, dad. Just give me a minute to get dressed and I'll head up."

Mr. Ping nodded, and left the alleyway, allowing Po to slowly pull himself out of the basin and begin getting dressed.

After finally slipping on the vest and readjusting his leg wrappings to a comfortable level, Po finally started heading towards the noodle shop, newly clean and ready to take on all comers.

As he entered through the back doorway of the shop, Po soon noticed that there were customers already filling the shop, which made him worried a bit, but when he noticed Mr. Ping handling the customers with a newfound sense of vigor, Po felt a little more relieved himself.

"See you later, dad! I'll come visit when I can!" Po yelled over the constant chatter of the patrons.

Mr. Ping looked up from where he was handling a customer's order, waving to Po as the panda finally left the shop, heading for the Thousand Steps as he placed his hat back on to his head.

After finally reaching said steps, Po stood at the bottom for a few seconds, reflecting for a bit on all of the trouble he had climbing these steps before.

"Alright stairs. Let's see how you handle me now that I've lost all that weight!" he said to himself before finally beginning his journey upwards.

To Po's surprise, he was actually able to handle the journey pretty well. He was well aware that his muscular frame was probably the reason why he wasn't even winded halfway up, but it was still a definite change compared to his past experiences with the Thousand Steps.

Eventually, Po finally reached the top of the stairs, and he couldn't resist turning around, pointing his finger down towards the bottom of the stairs as he began boasting.

"Ha! I finally beat you, stupid stairs! Let it be known on this day that the Dragon Warrior has finally bested his nemesis!" he said.

Po began celebrating for a few moments before he was suddenly interrupted.

"I see you've finally climbed the Stairs without collapsing. Congratulations, Dragon Warrior."

Po immediately whipped around, discovering just who it was that spoke.

"Master Shifu!"


	7. Chapter 7

Po stood in front of the entrance to the Jade Palace, his mouth hanging open in surprise as he certainly didn't expect Master Shifu to already have known that he was here.

"How did you know I was coming? I'm pretty sure no one even knew I was even on my way back to the valley!"

"It was a message from the Universe that told me you were coming home. I just wanted to be the first to greet you on your return to the palace." Shifu said, a small smirk on his face.

However, Po just gave him a look of confusion, which forced Shifu to sigh and tell the truth about how he found out.

"Viper told me."

"Oh! Of course! Viper told you." said Po, having finally understood what Shifu meant to say.

Po slowly rolled his eyes as he looked away from Shifu for a few seconds.

"Any more confusing and you'd turn into the next Oogway." he mumbled before turning back to Shifu pressing his fist into his palm, bowing respectfully.

"Anyway, I'm glad to see that you've finally returned to us, Dragon Warrior, especially after all these years." said Shifu as he returned the bow.

"I'm glad to be back, Master Shifu." said Po before suddenly realizing something strange. "Wait…why are you still calling me the Dragon Warrior? I kind of figured disappearing for ten years would kind of…change things a bit, I guess."

Although Shifu was a bit perturbed at Po's wild grasp at logic concerning his status as Dragon Warrior, he willingly decided to play along and answer Po's question.

"Why not? As far as I'm concerned, Master Oogway's decision still stands, even though I still never quite understood what that turtle was thinking that day."

Po unfortunately caught Master Shifu's aside about Oogway's competence, so the red panda was forced to quickly change the subject before things got awkward.

"Anyway, I see no reason to strip your title over something so minor as wanting to improve yourself."

Po smiled, happy that Master Shifu was being as forgiving as he was.

"Thank you, Master Shifu."

Shifu nodded before finally deciding to move on from the current subject.

"I see you've changed quite a bit. You don't seem so…let's say…portly as you used to." said Shifu after noticing the new bulk on Po's body.

"You like? Took me quite a while to get rid of all that weight, and even longer to start building the muscle." said Po, a smug smile on his face as he flexed a bit.

Unfortunately, Po wasn't able to play around too long, as a stern look from the grandmaster forced him to stop showing off.

"Sorry, Master Shifu." he said, bowing again in apology.

"It's quite alright, Po. Now, let me be the first to welcome you back into the halls of the Jade Palace! Come on in."

Shifu stepped to the side of the steps, gesturing towards the front doors with his hand. As for Po, he was admittedly a little caught off guard by the sudden cordialness of Shifu, but he decided to take it in stride and follow along with Shifu while he was in a relatively good mood.

Po slowly walked up the steps, stopping in front of the door, a little too nervous to actually go right through. Glancing over at Master Shifu, he gave the red panda a questioning look, as if to ask whether it was alright for him to go through. Shifu immediately returned a quick nod, and Po finally walked through the door, a little more confident now that he received Master Shifu's full approval.

* * *

After spending some time walking through the halls, Po continued to reflect on the limited amount of time he spent walking these halls during his first few months as the Dragon Warrior.

"Man, this brings back memories." he said, smiling as looked around the area he was in.

"Well, at least hope that you remember where your room is located. Otherwise you won't have anywhere to sleep while you're here." said Shifu.

"Really? My room's still there?"

"Just as you'd left it. The servants tried to clean it up, but thankfully Master Mantis and Master Crane were able to convince them to leave it alone."

"That's kind of strange." said Po, giving Master Shifu a curious look. "You'd figure they'd be more than happy to follow the wishes of those two."

"Well, admittedly I may have wanted to have that room cleaned up a bit. I knew from past experiences that you weren't the tidiest panda in the world."

Po opened his mouth to argue for a moment before realizing that Master Shifu was right. To be honest, while Po wasn't a slob (he couldn't even count the amount of times his dad reminded him to keep his room clean back at the noodle shop), but there have been times where Po has let the cleanliness of the room go a bit.

"I wouldn't have minded if you guys wanted to clean up my room, Master Shifu. You know, it'd be kind of like starting over…kind of."

"Well, your friends disagreed. They agreed to let the servants keep your room clean, but everything that you left behind is still there, except for those dolls you had."

"Action figures." said Po, annoyed, before he suddenly realized what he'd said.

Po looked over at Master Shifu, expecting him to be mad that he'd spoken out of turn, but to his surprise, Shifu still looked pretty pleasant, all things considered.

"Alright then…action figures."

Even though Shifu still looked like he hadn't even heard Po's tone, Po still felt like he needed to apologize.

"Sorry, Master Shifu. I threw those things out anyway, so I don't know why I even bothered correcting you."

Master Shifu was admittedly curious as to why Po would throw away what he initially considered as priceless artifacts back then, but he knew that it probably time for them to move on from where they were standing, so he decided to go ahead and change the subject, acknowledging Po's apology with a nod before speaking.

"Anyway, I believe that the Five should still be in the Training Hall at his hour. If you wish to join them after dropping off your things in your room, you may. Or you can have some breakfast if you would like. I understand that you have had a long journey getting back to the valley, so you must be pretty hungry."

Despite already having had a bowl of his dad's Secret Ingredient Soup, Po' s stomach immediately rumbled after hearing about food, which caused Shifu to smirk.

"I'm going to take that as going with the second option."

Po couldn't help but chuckle as he looked down at his stomach through his one still functional eye. Even with all of the weight that Po lost over the years he was away, he was still a panda, and his appetite never really waned.

"Thanks for the offer, Master Shifu."

As Po began to head over to the kitchen to make something for himself, he heard Master Shifu call after him from where he was originally standing.

"I may have given you the choice to train today, Po, but I expect you back at training every day starting tomorrow. Understood?"

Po quickly stopped in his tracks, turning around to face Master Shifu as he bowed.

"Yes, Master Shifu."

Shifu nodded before turning around himself as he made his way back over to the Training Hall.

* * *

As for Po, he continued making his way to the kitchen. Even though he was a bit miffed that Master Shifu had to remind him to go back to the normal schedule tomorrow (he had no intentions of not going back to training), Shifu still had his best interests in mind. Sure, he did spend ten years training himself to become a better warrior, but there was always something more that he could learn.

As soon as Po made it to the kitchen, he immediately went to work, grabbing as many of the ingredients that he could carry for making his own bowl of noodle soup before placing them all on the counter.

Unfortunately, spending ten years without making something along those lines can make anyone forget the recipe, so as soon as he took a look at the ingredients in front of him, he froze when he realized he couldn't remember how to make them.

"Aw, come on!" Po groaned. "Think, Po, think!"

Po smacked his head a couple of times with his hand, thinking that it would help jar his memories back, but unluckily nothing came up.

"Man, this sucks. I really should have asked my dad for a refresher course."

Po considered just heading back down to the noodle shop and asking his dad what the recipe was, but he admittedly didn't want to bother him, especially with how busy he assumed that Mr. Ping still was.

Groaning once more, Po decided just to wing it and hope for the best, thinking that trying it out would help knock off some of the rust, but as he would find out later, no one could create a masterpiece the first time they've tried.

After a little while of letting it cook, Po's ear twitched when he heard a large number of footsteps coming into the room. Despite having an idea of who they were, as well as the fact that he really wanted to talk to them, Po chose to concentrate on his cooking as he dipped his spoon into the pot. After a small pause, Po gave it a taste, hoping that his cooking skills didn't completely evaporate on him.

Thankfully, the soup was still pretty decent, which came as a surprise to Po, as he was expecting it to be a complete mess, especially considering he was cooking with one eye. Unfortunately, though, it wasn't to the level that he remembered doing it before, but he shrugged, thinking that a decent tasting meal was better than nothing.

"Hiya guys. Training go well?" asked Po, turning around and finding the Furious Five sitting at the table as he predicted.

"Pretty well, although Monkey did end up getting torched a few times." said Mantis.

"Hey! Those flamethrowers snuck up on me!" shouted Monkey as Mantis snickered.

"Anyway…we were kind of surprised that you weren't in there with us. I kind of expected it after Master Shifu went out to greet you. Did something happen?" asked Viper curiously.

"Oh no. Master Shifu let me get something to eat before I joined you guys. Unfortunately, cooking this stuff took longer than expected." said Po as he pointed towards the pot behind him.

"Why's that?"

"Well, when you've gone without noodles of this quality for ten years, you tend to forget things."

The members of the Five traded looks, worried about the quality of the food, forcing Po to go on the defensive.

"Hey, it's still alright! It's not as good as it usually is, but at least I'm not going to accidentally poison you guys."

Po's explanation didn't exactly make the Five any more confident, but after Po passed out bowls and soup and the Five gave the soup their own taste, they were all pretty surprised to find that Po was telling the truth.

"Wow. Not bad for ten years of rust." said Crane.

"Yeah, you sure you forgot how to make this thing?" asked Mantis.

Po simply shrugged, thinking that it may have just been pure dumb luck that he managed to get it nearly on the nose the first time out.

As Po and the rest of the Five continued to silently enjoy their bowls of soup, Viper decided that now was the best time to get a conversation going so that their meal wasn't entirely going to be an awkward affair. Besides, she was very curious about what happened with Po, especially after taking a look at those scars all over his body.

"So Po…"

"Hmm?" asked Po, his mouth full with noodles as he looked up at Viper.

"I'm kind of curious. What kind of things were you doing over the past ten years? I mean, I doubt that you would be able to get the kind of frame that you have now just doing what you were doing before you left, to be honest."

Po quickly swallowed the noodles in his mouth before pausing to think a moment.

"What's there to say? I traveled through China, trained under other kung-fu masters, worked the weight off...Let me tell you, getting those extra pounds off was not easy."

"Well…isn't there anything interesting you'd wish to share with us? We haven't seen you in so long. I can imagine most of us are probably curious to see what you've been up to." said Tigress, the others nodding in agreement.

"Okay…I suppose I can share one thing that I can remember."

Po paused as he tried to remember something interesting that happened during his journey. Unfortunately, Po didn't exactly have the best long term memory (he couldn't even remember anything that happened when he was a cub), so pulling out a memory proved to be a challenge.

Thankfully, he was able to think of something after his hand brushed against the scar over his eye while he was scratching at his ear.

"Oh! How about I tell you the story of how I got this?" he asked as he pointed towards said eye.

"Okay, I suppose that would something interesting to hear. How about you guys?" asked Crane.

Po watched as all of the other members of the Five agreed to hear his story.

"Well, I already told Master Shifu the general gist of the story, but I think you guys deserve something a little more substantial."

Po sighed before finally launching into his story.

"Anyway, I was resting inside a small town near the southern end of China, when I saw a group of wolf bandits harassing a few shopkeepers near the inn I was staying at. Now, as I'm sure you can imagine, I wasn't just going to sit by and let that happen, so I immediately jumped into action."

Po paused for a moment as he played the memory in his mind, almost as if it was happening in front of him as he spoke.

"Unfortunately for them, they happened to be of the 'cowardly' type of bandits, and word happens to spread pretty fast when you happen to be the Dragon Warrior, so they immediately ran when I confronted them."

"So I assume this means the shopkeepers were safe?" asked Tigress.

"Yeah, they were. I checked on them after this whole mess ended, and they were fine. Anyway, by that point I had already lost the weight, and I looked relatively similar to how I do now, so keeping up with them wasn't a huge deal. The only problem, though, was that I ended up falling over a large rock as we were making a turn past a campsite, and I ended up rolling into one of the tents. And wouldn't you know it? Master Hawk happened to be occupying the tent at that exact moment, and I ended up rolling right into his lap. Needless to say, he wasn't happy that his tent was destroyed."

"So this…'Master Hawk'…was the reason you're half-blind now, is it?" asked Monkey, emphasizing the name with finger quotes.

"Yeah, he would have clawed my entire eye out if it weren't for his apprentice calming him down. It still hurt like hell, though."

Monkey still didn't exactly believe him, though, despite the honesty in Po's tone.

"Have you heard anything about this Master Hawk? I don't remember hearing anything about him." he asked as he turned towards Tigress.

"To be honest, I haven't. The only kung-fu masters I remember off the top of my head are most of the bigger name ones and some that I have read about while looking through the Thousand Scrolls."

"And you didn't see a Master Hawk anywhere?"

Tigress shook her head, confirming Monkey's suspicions. However, before he could call Po out on it, they were suddenly interrupted by another voice.

"I believe I can vouch for the existence of Master Hawk."

Everybody turned towards the door to find Master Shifu standing there, just as he was during the night Po left years ago.

"You can, Master Shifu?" asked Tigress curiously.

"Well, I haven't met him personally, but I do remember Master Oogway mentioning to me years ago about a visit he had with Master Hawk. Terrible temper he had, though. Even the smallest things can set him off."

"See? What did I tell you?" said Po, happy that Master Shifu was there to back him up.

As for the Furious Five, they saw no other reason to question Po's account, so they all decided just to return to finishing off their bowls of soup before cleaning them out and leaving them for the servants to wash.

"So, how about you show us some of the stuff that you've learned? I'm kind of interested to see what you've picked up." said Mantis as Po and the Five walked away from the kitchen, Shifu deciding to head in a different direction.

"I dunno, you guys. I'm a little worn out from all that traveling."

"Oh come on, it'll just be for a little bit!" said Monkey.

Although Po was still reluctant to agree, considering he really wanted to take a nap after having spent a good amount of time without sleep, he finally relented after Mantis and Monkey were forced to resort to pleading.

"Alright, fine, if you guys want to see it, I'll show you for a bit. Then I get to take a nap, alright?"

"Of course, Po!" said Mantis.

As the Furious Five followed Po as he made his way to the Training Hall, Po couldn't help but feel nervous as he wondered what exactly he could show that would impress kung-fu masters like the Five.

Sighing, Po decided just to go ahead and wing it, realizing just as he came through the Training Hall doors that he didn't really need to look for the Five's approval, as he was well aware of how capable he was already.

* * *

 **Okay, so quickly, I'm sorry about the odd ending place for this chapter, but this was already getting pretty long, and if I didn't end it now it would probably take me until tomorrow to actually finish. So anyway, I hope that you've at least enjoyed the full reunion between Po and the masters of the Jade Palace, and I will see you guys soon! (especially considering how quickly I'm putting these out)**


	8. Chapter 8

Once Po and the others made their way into the Training Hall, the Five stood off to the side as they prepared to watch and see what Po had to offer.

As for Po himself, he was still unsure exactly what to start with, considering he was pretty nervous at this point, but he eventually decided to stand in front of the Gauntlet of Wooden Warriors, figuring that it would be good to start small.

As the Five watched from off to the side, Po stood at attention for a few moments, collecting his thoughts as he prepared to go in to the gauntler. He slowly breathed in and out, trying to enter a zen-like state.

Eventually, when it almost got to the point that Mantis was beginning to get annoyed at all of the stalling, Po's elbows suddenly were thrust backwards, his fists at his sides as he entered another fighting stance.

The Five couldn't help but be curious at what Po had in mind to show, watching as the Dragon Warrior sprung off of his front foot, twisting in the air before landing in the middle of the dummies.

As the Five watched the warriors begin to spin, Po began weaving through their attacks, blocking and dodging each strike effortlessly before pushing some back with strikes of his own.

"Wow, Po's moving pretty gracefully out there. I didn't think someone of his size would be able to move around like that." commented Crane as he watched.

"He's even doing it with his eyes closed!" said Viper, surprised that Po would be ballsy enough to even try something like that.

"Way to go, Po!" yelled Mantis, cheering Po on as the panda transferred over to the Jade Tortoise of Wisdom.

Unfortunately, despite being in complete control of his own movements, Po ended up getting distracted by Mantis, tripping slightly as he jumped into the Jade Tortoise.

"Mantis!" shouted Tigress, chiding the miniature kung-fu master as she began to think that he screwed up Po's form by distracting him, but to her surprise, Po managed to roll through the inside of the bowl and land feet first on the edge of the Tortoise.

"Whoa, look at that recovery!" said Monkey.

Even Tigress couldn't help but be impressed by Po's style as the panda launched into different forms, successfully managing to throw his bulk around pretty well as he flipped around on to each side of the Jade Tortoise.

After spending some more time running through some of his forms on the Jade Tortoise, Po opened his eyes, a determined look on his face as he used the Jade Tortoise to launch himself towards another area of the Training Hall, swinging across the Seven-Talon Rings before landing near the Swinging Clubs of Instant Oblivion.

Almost immediately, two of the clubs began swinging towards Po, and just as it was about to hit him, Po jumped off of the spinning serpent logs, spin kicking both of the clubs as hard as he could, successfully breaking them into pieces as Po finally landed just in front of the contraption.

"You guys satisfied now?" he asked, breathing hard as he stood covered in sweat from the intense workout he just went through.

"Sure. We're more than satisified." said Mantis.

"That was some impressive skill you've displayed there, Po. I think you might have been the first one to challenge the Swinging Clubs and not get yourself hurt since Tigress!" said Crane.

"Wow, really? I kind of figured one of you guys would have figured that thing out by then." said Po, surprised.

As for Tigress herself, she was in a bit of a state of mixed emotions. While Po managing to beat the Swinging Clubs so easily was a bit of a dent in her pride, considering how long she spent training to get to that point, the master of the Tiger Style was pretty impressed with Po's skill, despite not wanting to admit it.

Instead of trying to find a way to congratulate Po verbally, Tigress simply decided to nod at Po, a small smile on her face. Po, meanwhile, returned the smile, happy at know that he at least managed to get some form of approval from the notoriously hard to please Tigress.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go wash up and then go take a nap. I'm kind of worn out right now."

No one else in the room tried to argue against Po following through with his plan, so Po grabbed a towel, wiping his face off before heading to the bathhouse to freshen up.

* * *

After getting himself cleaned off for the second time that day, Po was in his room, curled up on his bedroll as he tried to go to sleep. Unfortunately, even with being as tired as he was, getting to sleep proved to be a challenge for the battle-hardened panda, as he was so used to spending more time awake than asleep thanks to wanting to keep himself protected during his travels.

Sighing, Po rolled over on to his other side, wincing as he felt the scars on his body rub against the bedroll. Admittedly, it has been years since any of his scars had really stung. Frankly, he couldn't even remember if any of them had even caused him any pain after the last one he had earned had stopped hurting. Still, it was still a weird feeling to Po when outside contact reminded him of the fact that they were still there.

"Come on, Po. It's been years since the last one. You can get to sleep fine." he whispered to himself, trying to will himself to sleep.

Eventually, Po did end up managing to successfully go to sleep after finding a comfortable position on the bedroll. The peaceful sleep didn't last very long, though. Once Po was finally deaf to the world around him, the problems began to start rearing their heads.

* * *

It was a normal day inside the valley, and Po was walking through the marketplace, having been tasked to purchase some of the ingredients that he needed for the night's dinner.

As Po continued walking, he considered going to see his father now that he was away from the palace. Unfortunately, those thoughts were soon banished from his head as he began to sense that something was wrong.

Po looked around the area near him, thinking that there might be someone wanting to attack him. However, he was taken aback when he found out that he was receiving a lot of stares from the villagers, around him. Some of them were even beginning to turn angry, a fact that scared Po.

"Hey, guys. Something wrong?" he asked, trying to jokingly placate the angry villagers.

However, instead of the villagers doing what he expected them to do, the amount of angry villagers soon grew, and their eyes soon began to glow a bright red, which alarmed Po greatly.

"What do you want?!"

The villagers began slowly walking forward, forcing Po to backtrack so he wouldn't be surrounded.

"Look, if this is about that day, I'm sorry! It was an accident! They all survived, so what are you guys still mad about?" said Po.

He might as well have been talking to himself by this point, because the villagers continued to come towards him, eventually surrounding him as they continued to grow in numbers despite Po's attempts to prevent that from happening.

"No, please! I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry!" yelled Po, going to his knees as he attempted to beg his way out of his current predicament.

By then it was too late for Po to do anything, and he could only watch, unable to defend himself as he was overwhelmed by the sea of villagers, the only thing he could see before the darkness enveloped him being a strange blood red eye with other red rays broadcasting around the eye.

"Nooo!"

* * *

"Aggghhh!"

Po's arms flailed around for a few moments, nearly knocking over a few things inside his room before he managed to pull himself out of his stupor, rolling off of his bed as he sat up facing the back wall of his room.

As Po breathed hard, his entire body covered in sweat as he felt himself to make sure he was still in one piece, he heard the door to his room open behind him.

"Po? Po! Are you alright?"

Po twisted his torso around, looking behind him to find that it was Viper standing in the doorway, looking frightened as she took in the sight in front of her.

"I'm alright. I just had a little nightmare." said Po, attempting to close the subject so that Viper would leave him alone.

Unfortunately, Viper wasn't one of those types of people that gave up easily, so Po sighed when he heard her slither into the room, stopping by his side.

"Why don't you tell me about it? I've heard that talking about it to someone else can help get someone over the trauma that caused the nightmares to start in the first place."

Po paused, sighing.

"Viper, believe me. This is way more than just a simple nightmare to me. I don't think just talking to someone about it would work."

Although Viper was slightly annoyed at Po's refusal to talk, she remained cordial, deciding to try a different method.

"Well…why don't you just explain to me what happened in the nightmare and we'll see if this is, as you would say, 'more than a nightmare'." she said, using her tail as a finger quotes gesture.

While Po was willing to admit that Viper did have a point, he still didn't believe that it was worth telling her what it was about. Not only would she probably end up launching into another lecture about how what happened ten years ago wasn't his fault (which was probably the least helpful piece of advice he would have ever gotten), but this was also a nightmare that he had been having for a very long time.

"Look Viper, I appreciate the help, but I've been having this same nightmare for a very long time. To be honest, this is the first time that I've had that nightmare since about six years ago."

"Well, what happened six years ago?"

"I…really don't want to talk about it."

Viper stared at Po for a few moments, miffed that Po was almost completely clamming up. Unfortunately, as much as she wanted to try and get the answer out of the panda, she soon realized that it was a losing battle, so she sighed and turned around, heading towards the door.

"If you want to talk, Po, I'll be around. Does that sound good?"

"Yeah." said Po, raising his hand for a second to wave goodbye to Viper as he continued to stare at the back wall.

Eventually, the door shut behind him, and Po was left to his thoughts once again.

"Maybe I should have just told her." Po said to himself as he stared at his feet, wiggling them around a bit as he aimlessly watched them move.

Po began to reconsider what he chose for a few seconds after that thought ran through his head, but he soon shook his head when he realized the can of worms he would be opening up, especially with what he went through during the first few years he was away.

Sighing, Po rolled back on to his bedroll and lied down, closing his eyes as he was finally able to go to sleep thankfully without the nightmare affecting him.

* * *

A few hours later, Po woke up once more, feeling much more refreshed despite the hell he went through before his actual nap.

Slowly picking himself up off of his bedroll, Po walked over to the door and slid it open, only to find when he looked outside that the sky was already starting to get pretty dark.

"Wow. I guess I must have slept a little longer than I thought." Po said to himself, suppressing a yawn as he walked through the doorway into the open air of the Palace.

As Po walked through the palace grounds, taking in the sights, he began to consider what he should probably do next while he still had some of his free day left. Admittedly, he considered just getting something to eat in the kitchen, since it looked like it was almost dinnertime, but as he stared out into the village down below, he soon realized that the nightmare he just had was still very much on his mind.

"Why can't you guys just forgive me?" asked Po quietly as he stared at the specks in the marketplace, milling about as if nothing in the world was wrong.

Instead of heading towards the kitchen, Po decided to head in a different direction, the sacred Peach Tree of Heavenly Wisdom soon coming over the horizon, the tree having finally fully grown long after his battle with Ke-Pa.

After pausing and looking at the beautiful scenery below the cliff for a few moments, Po sat down under the tree, crossing his feet under each of his legs in the lotus position before he began breathing in and out, trying his best to clear his mind.

Unfortunately, Po was never all that good at meditating, as most of the time he tried he'd usually end up thinking about how hungry he was at that moment. As for now, though, anytime he tried to close his eyes, all he could see was a vision of the angry villagers from his nightmare.

Annoyed, Po rubbed his face with his hands, placing his chin on his palms as he rested his elbows on his legs. As he looked into the distance, he began to wonder if he was ever going to get past what happened on that day. It was beginning to affect him, and he was worried if things went wrong on that front, then he knew he was in trouble.

As he took the time to reflect, though, Po suddenly remembered something else interesting that happened with his nightmare. The symbol he saw just before he woke up popped into his head, and he sat up, confused as he wondered just what that symbol meant.

"What was that symbol about? I don't remember ever seeing it in any of my other nightmares." he said to himself as he stared off into the distance.

"What symbol?" said a voice from behind him.

Po immediately jumped, caught off guard by the sudden noise cutting through the sheer tranquility of the air around him. Turning around, he found Tigress, looking at Po questioningly as he lied on the ground in front of her.

"It was nothing, Tigress. I was just talking to myself."

Po had a pretty good idea that everyone was probably going to think he was crazy if he mentioned the fact that he was seeing a mysterious symbol in his dreams, which was why he chose to remain silent on the matter.

Thankfully, Tigress wasn't really in the mood to pry, so she simply sighed and gestured towards Po.

"Come on, it's dinner time. The servants have cooked up something for tonight, and the others are waiting for you."

As much as Po wanted some more time to focus on what the symbol could mean, he really didn't want to keep the others waiting, so he willingly picked himself up, and him and Tigress made their way to the kitchen, thinking that he could try and focus on that task after dinner.


	9. Chapter 9

Thankfully for Po's nerves, the dinner went pretty smoothly, as no one really wanted to ask him about what happened during his nap.

You see, word tends to travel pretty quickly around the palace, especially when one makes as much noise as Po did during his time in his room. Even Master Viper couldn't really keep any details to herself, but that's mostly because she wanted nothing more than to help who she considered as a brother.

Unfortunately, despite some attempts from the rest of the Five to get Po to talk about what he went through, the panda remained quiet, eventually getting to the point where he ended up slamming the door of his room in Crane's face.

As Po lied on his bedroll, his mind constantly buzzing with questions about if he really should be shutting himself off from the others, his focus soon drifted to the scars that dotted his body as the memories of his early years away from the valley played in his mind.

"Why won't you just go away?" said Po quietly as he clutched the sides of his head with his hands, hoping to will away the bad memories as he tried his best not to fall apart.

The memories refused to do as Po wished, though, and while they did finally stop playing, the ordeal itself was still pretty fresh in his mind.

"What did I do to deserve this?" thought Po as he buried his face in the crook of his arm, the scars that brushed against his face a painful reminder of his past as the tears began to fall.

Po did eventually manage to cry himself to sleep after a little while, but his breakdown wasn't as private as he thought it was, as Viper could clearly hear the choked sobs coming through the thin rice paper walls of their rooms.

"Oh, Po. I really wish you'd just tell us." said Viper to herself quietly as she curled up in a coil and went to sleep once the crying finally tapered out.

* * *

The next morning came, and with it the early morning gong just as it normally does.

Master Shifu walked around the corner just as the gong finished reverberating to find the Five standing at attention in front of their rooms just like it always has been.

"Good morning, Master Shifu!" said the Five all at once.

"Good morning, students."

Shifu then quickly glanced over at Po's room, expecting him to be slightly late like he had gotten himself used to seeing back when he was first living with them, but to his surprise, Po was already there, standing at attention with the others.

"I'm impressed, Dragon Warrior. Usually we'd have to drag you out of bed at this point."

"Well, I had to change my sleep schedule a bit while I was training with Master Bear and Master Chicken, so I decided why not just keep doing it that way?"

Most of the Five (except for Tigress) were stunned at how casually Po mentioned the fact that he trained under two of the most well-known kung fu masters outside of the Kung Fu Council themselves, but they remained standing, not wanting Shifu to notice them breaking their concentration.

"It's good to see that you're finally making good changes in your life, Po."

Shifu nodded at Po in appreciation before turning to address everyone else in the room.

"Training begins in one hour! I expect all of you inside the Training Hall and warming up before I arrive there. Dismissed!"

"Yes, Master Shifu!" said Po and the Five before they finally broke formation to head to the kitchen for breakfast.

* * *

Breakfast was once again a silent affair as none of them felt it was the best time to bring up their issues with how Po was managing himself, especially considering that they didn't want to set Po off and have it affect the rest of the day.

Eventually, though, Viper felt that she really needed to say at least something so that they would know if Po was or wasn't going to let his…mental issues…become a problem later down the line.

However, before she could actually say anything, she was surprised to find Mantis beating her to the punch.

"So, uh…how are you feeling, Po?"

Po looked up from his bowl at Mantis, quickly swallowing his vegetables before speaking.

"I'm fine, why do you ask?"

"Well, uh…the walls inside the student barracks aren't exactly the most soundproof things in the world."

Po fell silent for a moment, realizing that he must have not been as quiet as he thought he was last night.

"It's nothing, you guys. Why can't you guys realize that I just want to deal with this by myself?"

"Po, seriously! I'd be shocked in someone can still retain their sanity with having to go through what we think you're going through right now. Just tell us what's going on and we can help you!" said Viper, getting annoyed at constantly being brushed off by the panda.

Po considered just clamming up once more and refusing to tell anything, but when he noticed the looks that the Five were giving him, he soon realized that he would just end up driving them away if he continued on the path that he was, so he sighed.

"Believe me, I'd love to tell you guys, but…you just wouldn't understand."

"Try me." said Crane.

"No, seriously, you guys! The first couple of years away from here were one of the worst times of my life. I want nothing more than to forget that period of time ever happened, but it doesn't…ever…work!"

Po smacked the table with his hand after each of the last three words he spoke, jostling the contents.

The rest of the people in the room were silent as they reacted to Po's sudden outburst.

"Wow. Sure didn't expect that."

"Mantis!" chided Viper before Po suddenly cleared his throat, getting everyone's attention.

"I'm really sorry, you guys, but I don't think I'm ready to tell you guys yet. As I've said before, it's something that I think I need to deal with myself."

"Alright, Po, if you say so." said Crane reluctantly.

"Just…if you decide that you really need our help with this, we're listening, okay? Don't think that you're entirely alone on this, Po, because you're not." said Viper.

"Yeah, Po. If you need cheering up, I'm your man!" said Monkey, tapping his fist up against his chest as he spoke.

"Hey, what about me? I'm just as capable of cheering the big guy up as you!" said Mantis playfully, causing Monkey to burst out laughing.

It warmed Po's heart gratefully to see how gung-ho everyone was about helping him through his dark times, and he smiled as he watched Mantis and Monkey horse around.

"Wow, thanks you guys. I really appreciate you guys willing to step up for me, even though I don't think I really deserve it."

"Are you kidding? Of course you deserve our help! What kind of friends would we be if we don't help another friend out?"

Po turned towards the source of who was speaking and found to his surprise that it was actually Tigress, who had a paw on his shoulder, a warm smile on her face as she looked at him.

"Well, why don't we ever get this side of Tigress more often?"

"Shut up, Mantis."

"And there she is." said Crane, disappointed that Mantis completely ruined the moment.

As for Po, he gave Tigress a quick smile before quickly finishing his bowl of soup, stretching out a bit as he headed towards the exit of the kitchen, Tigress's paw slipping off of his shoulder as he walked.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna be heading over to the Training Hall. I think Master Shifu should be getting over there pretty soon."

Tigress's eyes widened as she realized that it was indeed getting pretty close to the end of the hour they were given. Apparently the talk must have taken longer than they thought. Thankfully, though, it seemed like everyone else was done with their soup, so after quickly washing off her bowl in the sink, she followed Po into the hallway, the rest of the Five behind her soon after once they got their own bowls cleaned.

* * *

As Master Shifu walked down the hallway towards the entrance to the Training Hall, his mind began to wander a bit as he was admittedly interested to see what Po had managed to learn over the years he was gone.

The fact that he so casually mentioned the fact that he trained under two very well-known kung fu masters made him curious to see how Po managed to incorporate their styles of kung fu into his fighting style.

Finally, he successfully managed to reach the doors, and as he opened one of the doors and slipped through, he noticed that the Five and Po were hard at work at different stations within the kwoon.

Tigress was working with the Swinging Clubs, no doubt trying to improve her skill with the contraption after seeing Po easily handle it yesterday. Viper was weaving her way through the Field of Fiery Death, barely managing to dodge the spouts of flame as she worked on her agility.

As for Monkey, he was swinging along on the Seven-Taloned Rings as he sparred with Crane, while Mantis was a blur as he zipped his way through the Gauntlet of Wooden Warriors.

Master Shifu stood there quietly, impressed by the newfound vigor of his students as they attacked the course. Eventually, he turned away from the Five, intending to see what Po was doing, only to be pleasantly surprised when he found the Dragon Warrior standing in front of one of the Adversaries, attacking it with punches, kicks, and other techniques as the inflatable object simply stood there and took it, bouncing back with every hit.

Shifu eventually decided to walk over and take a closer look at Po's technique to indulge his curiosity.

One thing he couldn't help but notice as he stood by was that Po had a lot of power behind his strikes. While that wasn't exactly the worst thing in the world (even the Tiger style mastered by Tigress was based upon powerful strikes), what worried Master Shifu a bit was the mask of anger that Po had on his face.

Now, Master Shifu was admittedly unsure himself as to what had Po so riled up, but he felt that it was best not to interrupt his training and break his concentration. So, after he decided to simply attribute it to wanting to work off some stress, Shifu walked away from Po and returned to the small staircase.

Once Shifu made it up to the wooden floor surrounding the kwoon, he turned to face his students, raising his hands and sharply clapping three times.

This caught everyone's attention, and they immediately went over to the floor in front of the steps and bowed before standing at attention.

"Excellent work on warm-ups, students. There's only one thing that I would like to point out, though, that could be improved upon."

Shifu quickly turned towards Mantis, who looked like he was caught with his 'thingies' in the cookie jar.

"Master Mantis, I noticed that your aim was a little off on your nerve strikes against the Wooden Warriors. Please work on that, otherwise there's no telling what will happen when they're used against live targets."

"Yes, Master Shifu." said Mantis, bowing once more as he was painfully reminded of the time that he nearly ended up getting Po's face clawed off after accidentally tweaking his facial nerve in front of Tigress.

"Good. Now that everyone's warmed up, I think we should probably work on some sparring. Master Tigress? You will start with Po. Is that understood?"

Although slightly caught off guard by being suddenly thrust into action so soon, Po stepped into the middle of the kwoon as the rest of the Five, except for Tigress, joined Master Shifu on the steps.

Both Po and Master Tigress stood across from each other, preparing for the battle ahead of them. Tigress, focused as she ever has been, raised her right palm into the air behind her as her other palm faced towards her opponent.

"Ready."

Po's eyes widened for a bit after seeing the stern look on Tigress's face, but he managed to calm himself down and focus on getting ready to spar. After a few moments of silence, Po rotated his body to the right, his right leg slightly behind and to the right of his front leg as he left one of his fists at his side and his other hand open in front of his chest.

"Begin!"

After Master Shifu's signal, Po suddenly rushed forwards, nearly catching Tigress off guard, but she was successfully able to block Po's strike with her arm.

Po continued to lash out with strikes, forcing Tigress on the defensive as she dodged punch after kick. She soon noticed, though, that Po was so focused on getting through her defenses that he left himself open to a counter attack.

Thinking fast, Tigress dodged another one of Po's punches, and as her body moved to the side through the motion of dodging, she immediately dropped to all fours and lashed out with a sweep kick, successfully knocking Po off of his feet.

However, before Tigress could do anything further to end the match right there, Po immediately rolled to his feet, surprising Tigress with his sudden burst of agility.

With a growl, Po went back on the offensive, but Tigress was ready this time, catching Po's punch and easily flipping the bulky panda over her shoulder, sending him down to the ground.

Po was about ready to pick himself back up and continue the fight, but before he could do so, he was suddenly interrupted by Master Shifu.

"Enough!"

Both Po and Tigress stopped what they were doing and returned to attention, soon noticing that Shifu had a really disappointed look on his face.

"Po! You must not let your anger drive your strikes! You're not only leaving yourself wide open to counter attacks, but it goes against everything that Master Oogway has taught you!"

Po immediately bowed, despondent that he allowed himself to get that riled up so easily.

"I'm sorry, Master Shifu. I don't know what came over me."

"See to it that it's fixed, Dragon Warrior. We can't afford to let this happen again when the stakes are higher than they are now."

Po bowed once more, showing that he understood. Master Shifu then looked over at Tigress, who was admittedly a little curious as to why Po suddenly was fighting as aggressively as he was.

"As for you, Master Tigress, good work. You've managed to use Po's aggression against him, but do make sure that you're not put in that position in the first place. I've noticed that you weren't prepared for the way he fought."

"Of course, Master Shifu." said Tigress, bowing towards Shifu as well.

Having given all of the advice he had in mind, Master Shifu turned towards the rest of the Five, who were all admittedly taken aback by the aggressive fighting style Po showed off.

"Master Crane, Master Monkey…you two are next up."

Both Crane and Monkey went down into the kwoon in front of them, replacing Po and Tigress as the two of them rejoined the others on the steps, Po looking despondent as he refused to look at the others.

However, before Crane and Monkey could begin to spar, the doors to the training hall suddenly flew open. Everyone in the room turned towards the doors, wondering who was interrupting their training time, when they found Zeng, the palace messenger standing in the doorway, looking as frightened as he ever has been.

"Zeng, we're busy at the moment. Can't this wait?" asked Master Shifu, slightly annoyed at the interruption.

"I'm sorry, Master Shifu, but this can't wait!"

Shifu sighed, rubbing at his eyes with his hand before finally turning towards the goose.

"Alright Zeng, what is it?"

What Zeng would say next, though, was something that none of the people in the training hall would have ever expected to hear.

"It's terrible! The Musician's Village is under attack!"


	10. Chapter 10

"What?"

Zeng immediately winced as he heard both the Furious Five and Master Shifu's outburst at the same time.

"It's true! I saw it myself when I was flying back from a delivery!"

Even though they haven't really gotten all of the details yet, Shifu did notice the fact that Zeng did look a little haggard. He couldn't really recall having a message sent recently, though, but he wasn't really worried about that fact.

"Tell me what happened, Zeng. I need some more details before we head out."

"There are bandits there, and I noticed that they were trying to steal all of the metal inside of the village. Please, you've got to hurry!"

"Tigress, go and take the rest of the Five to the Musician's Village, and quickly. Po?"

As Tigress and the rest of the Five rushed towards the exit, Master Shifu turned towards Po, who looked back at him curiously.

"Remember what I said. We'll talk later about this."

Admittedly Po was a bit worried, thinking that he might have done something to get in trouble, but those worries soon slipped out of his mind as he realized that he was falling behind.

Rushing towards the door, Po almost threw himself through the opening and sped towards the exit to the palace grounds, thankfully managing to catch up to the Five as they made their way past the Dragon Grotto and on to the cliffs overlooking the valley.

"So…what do you guys think?" asked Po in an attempt to break the awkward silence that his episode started.

"About what?" asked Viper.

"About the bandits! I can't help but wonder why they would only have their eye on steel things. Isn't that a little strange?"

Tigress couldn't help but be curious as well, but she knew that taking care of the bandits themselves were the biggest priority on their plates right now.

"Let's focus on taking them out first, alright Po? Then we'll think about why."

Po was admittedly disappointed, considering his curiosity was almost at its peak, but he acquiesced and the group fell silent just as they reached the overlook to the Musician's Village, and what he saw down there made his blood boil.

The bandits this time were wolves, but instead of the normal ransacking that he was used to, the wolves were getting very rough with the villagers, kicking them around freely and even dragging some of them away if they made an attempt to protect the metal that they were trying to steal. He could even see a pig trapped in one of the large bells, a net of rope preventing him from escaping.

A low growl escaped from Po's throat as his fists clenched and his arms began to shake in anger. He could barely even hear what was going on in front of him.

"Po?" asked Viper, confused as she and the Five were expecting an answer from Po as to whether he understood the plan.

However, when she turned to face him, she was shocked to find that he was almost literally radiating anger from his entire being. His teeth were bared and his eyes were narrowed almost to slits, but what really worried her was the amount of stress that Po looked like he was going through.

"Po? What's going on?"

"Never. Again."

Po's words came in a strained whisper, but Viper could clearly hear them. Before she could try and calm him down, though, Po immediately sprinted forwards, jumping off of the cliff face they were on as he made his way towards the village.

"Po, wait!"

"We'll deal with him later, Viper. Come on! We need to get down there before he gets himself hurt!"

Tigress immediately beckoned the rest of the Five towards their destination, and they all jumped off of the cliff as well, landing pretty smoothly near the outside of the village.

As the Five began to engage with the wolf bandits, though, they were all surprised to find that Po was managing to hold his own pretty well for how outnumbered he was before they came in. Then again, there's not much that one can do to defend themselves when they're dealing with a thoroughly pissed off panda bear.

After taking down one of the bandits, Tigress glanced quickly over towards Po as she checked to make sure he was alright just in time to see him violently roundhouse kick a wolf in the face, wincing as she noticed the wolf's snout snap out of place.

"We really need to get this stopped." she thought before engaging with another wolf bandit.

Thankfully, Po's rampage didn't cause any injuries to the villagers, as apparently Po seemed to be in control of his senses enough not to immediately run any of them over in his hunt for the wolf bandits. Tigress was admittedly a little surprised to find Po even protecting a blind rabbit who was busy playing music on a liuqin, unaware of the action going on around him.

One of the wolves, who appeared to be the alpha due to a strangely similar scar to Po's across his left eye, noticed how poorly their fight was going against the warriors of the Jade Palace, and he knew that their escape had to be now if they wanted to get away with the loot.

Letting out a howl, the Boss Wolf signaled into the sky, as the loot that they had collected began sliding towards the edge.

After taking out another bandit, Tigress looked over towards the pile of metal and finally noticed that it was being pulled away. However, what caught her attention was the pig villager, still trapped inside the bell as it was just about to go over the side.

"Crane, go! There's a villager stuck inside one of the bells!"

"I'm on it!"

Crane immediately flew off from his most recent knocked out bandit, and sped towards the edge of the cliff, barely managing to catch the bell as it went over the edge. Unfortunately, the metal was pretty heavy, so Crane was unable to do more than use his momentum to toss the bell up a few feet.

Thankfully, Tigress and the rest of the Five noticed after their attention was caught by Tigress's original warning, and they immediately rushed towards the cliff.

Without really thinking, Tigress jumped off of the cliff, managing to grab on to the bell just as it began to drop again. Before it could end up carrying her down to her death, though, she felt Viper wrap herself around Tigress's legs, and the Five formed a chain with Monkey carrying up the rear.

Unfortunately, Monkey was more built on speed than actual strength, so pulling everyone up proved to be a challenge. Luckily, though, a pair of muscular arms soon wrapped around Monkey's torso, and as the chain began to be pulled up, Monkey turned around to find that Po was the one who was helping them out, still looking pretty angry, but much less so compared to when they first arrived. This slightly worried the simian kung-fu master, but thankfully Po still seemed to be getting back to his normal self now that most of the bandits were down.

Eventually, once Tigress came over the side of the cliff, she used her own strength to toss the bell containing the pig on to solid ground, the pig soon coming to a complete stop thanks to Mantis.

As the villagers celebrated the warriors' victory, Tigress turned around, intending to talk to Po about what happened to him, but as her eyes landed on the panda, she noticed him walking towards the Boss Wolf, the only remaining bandit who hadn't already been knocked out.

She could tell that the Boss Wolf looked pretty nervous, no doubt due to the seething look that Po probably had on his face at that moment, but he brandished a large war hammer all the same in an attempt to protect himself.

However, what came next was a surprise, as Po suddenly froze in place once the Boss Wolf wound his hammer back as he prepared to attack.

"Po, watch out!"

By then it was too late, though, as the Boss Wolf's hammer connected with Po's jaw, sending the Dragon Warrior flying as he landed nearby a group of villagers, his weight sending them into the air a few feet.

"Ha! Chew on that!" yelled the Boss Wolf as he jumped on top of the one remaining pile of metal.

Before any of the others could make a move to catch him, the pile of metal was soon lifted into the air, and the Boss Wolf successfully made his escape.

Tigress stared at the retreating pile of metal for a few moments before rushing over to check on Po's condition. As she walked up, though, she noticed that the expression on Po's face has changed, so she assumed that hit with the hammer must have knocked him back to his senses.

"Po, what happened? You let him get away!" she said, slightly annoyed as she watched Po try to readjust his jaw.

"I don't know. I saw this weird symbol on that wolf's shoulder pad and I just froze."

Po didn't want to admit to Tigress that he had a really weird flashback of an old female panda running away from a pack of wolves in the middle of a forest, considering he knew he was already on thin ice with her after his outburst, so he remained silent on that part, choosing to only tell part of the truth.

Unfortunately, Tigress was unable to confront him on his vague answer, as the rest of the Five rushed forward to check on Po's well-being.

"I'll be fine, you guys! My jaw's just really sore right now." said Po after seeing the looks of worry on the other's faces and also having to deal with questions from them.

"I'm just glad to see you're okay, big guy. You were kind of worrying us a bit with that rampage you were going on earlier." said Mantis.

"Yeah, what happened? One second you were fine, but then you rushed in like a wild animal. That's unlike you!" said Crane.

Po looked noticeably cowed at Crane's admonishment, realizing that he did end up letting his emotions get the best of him again so soon.

"I'm sorry, you guys. I just…I saw what those bandits were doing to these villagers, and I couldn't handle it! I wanted to…to…to show them the error of their ways!" said Po, unable to think of a better way to say what he was trying to say.

"By beating a wolf half to death?" asked Monkey as he pointed towards one of the knocked out bandits, whose snout was almost nearly caved in.

Po didn't answer Monkey's question, but the genuine look of regret on his face made Tigress reconsider berating him for continuing to let his anger control his actions.

Sighing, she glanced over in the direction of where the Jade Palace was before returning her focus to Po, who still looked pretty upset with himself.

"Look, you do know that Master Shifu isn't going to be happy when he hears about this, do you?"

"Well, is there a chance that we could maybe…not…tell him?" he asked, a fake smile plastered on his face.

Unfortunately, the flat look Tigress had on her face gave him just the answer he needed, and he sighed in defeat.

"Alright. Let's head back."

As Po led the Five back along the path to the Jade Palace, he couldn't help but stare into the sky for a moment, lost in thought. He was admittedly worried that defying Shifu's orders, however unintentional it was, would lead to some dire consequences, so he went to the only one he knew how to speak to in an attempt to save face, his voice coming out in a whisper.

"God, I hope Master Shifu's not going to be too mad at me."

* * *

"I'm very disappointed in you, Po."

Unfortunately, Po's prayers were unanswered, as once they returned to the palace and Tigress gave her report, Master Shifu looked down on a noticeably distraught Po with a sad look on his face.

"I told you not to let your emotions get the best of you, and now I hear that you've been like a wild animal out there! Frankly, you're lucky that none of the villagers were hurt, otherwise there would be much more of a problem."

Po didn't answer, as he was still unable to look Shifu in the eye after realizing what he'd done. Surprisingly, though, before Shifu could continue on with his tirade, he was suddenly interrupted by someone else.

"Master Shifu, if I may?"

Shifu looked over and saw that it was in fact Crane who had spoken, his wings together as he bowed.

"Yes Crane, what is it?" he said, exasperated.

"While I will admit that Po's…episode…was a little concerning, it wasn't by sheer luck that none of the villagers were hurt. I noticed that he was actually working to protect some of the villagers that were around him while he was taking out his aggression on the bandits. I think that he may have still had his wits about him even though that didn't appear to be the case."

"Alright Crane, I appreciate your input, but-"

"Master Shifu!"

Shifu winced, annoyed that he was interrupted again before he could finish his sentence.

"Monkey? Do you have something you'd like to share with us?"

"Yes, there is. There was a villager tied up inside one of the bells inside the village. Myself and the others attempted to save him when the bandits tried to take the metal they stole away, but we wouldn't have been able to do it without Po's help!"

"And did you manage to recover the metal?"

Shifu was already aware of the fact that they lost the metal thanks to Tigress's report, but he wanted to hear it straight from Monkey's mouth.

"Well, no, but isn't the fact that the villagers were unharmed enough?"

Shifu paused for a moment as he considered what Monkey said.

"Yes, I suppose that's what matters in the long run, especially considering we don't even know what they were planning to use it for, but that still doesn't excuse-"

"Master Shifu!"

"Enough!"

Master Viper immediately fell silent, being the one who had just interrupted Master Shifu.

"While I appreciate your willingness to jump to the Dragon Warrior's defense, he did not remain in control of his emotions despite my specific instructions to do so."

Before Master Shifu was able to finish his thoughts, though, he looked over at Po and noticed the despondent look he still had on his face. Now, Shifu did always pride himself on being able to tell whether an expression was genuine or not, and from what he could tell, Po looked to be pretty genuine, so he was admittedly unsure of what to do now.

"You're not going to kick him out of the palace, are you?" asked Mantis.

"Please don't! He doesn't deserve getting kicked out like this!" said Viper, desperately pleading on Po's behalf.

Eventually, Shifu sighed, realizing that simply following the code and kicking Po out of the palace was going to be tougher than he thought. However, after a few seconds of considering his options, Shifu soon got an amazing idea, but he kept his expression neutral to avoid getting everyone's hopes up.

"Dragon Warrior, meet me at the Dragon Grotto in one hour. There is something important that we need to discuss there."

For the first time in a while, Po looked up at Shifu, confused as he wondered what exactly Shifu had in mind.

"What?" he said slowly.

Po was clearly expecting to be kicked out of the palace after what he did, but Shifu's answer completely caught him off guard.

However, before he could try to get some answers, Shifu had already turned around and was heading towards the Dragon Grotto, back in the direction that everyone else had originally traveled through to get back from the village.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I need some time to think. I'll be in the Dragon Grotto, but please do not bother me until my business with Po is concluded."

Without waiting for an answer, Master Shifu disappeared as the pathway to the Dragon Grotto soon blocked him from everyone's view.


	11. Chapter 11

As soon as Master Shifu disappeared over the horizon, the Furious Five all stared at Po with baffled looks on their faces, all of them wondering what exactly happened.

However, while Po was just as confused as everyone else, he really felt that he needed some time to reflect on what was going on with him over the past few hours, so he began heading off in the opposite direction of where Shifu was heading.

"I need some time to think, you guys." he said as he walked off, leaving the Five confused as they watched the retreating form of Po.

"Wait, what just happened?" asked Mantis.

"I don't know, Mantis. I don't know." said Crane, continuing to stare at the panda as he finally disappeared as well.

* * *

Po briefly considered just heading over to his room and closing the door, thinking that he would at least be able to get some guaranteed privacy in there, but he soon remembered that his room wasn't exactly the biggest thing in the world, and spending time inside that cramped space really wasn't going to help matters.

Eventually, he decided to head over to the Peach Tree of Wisdom, figuring that the fresh air would do him some good. He also considered trying out some meditation while he was there, but with how much his thoughts were swimming after what happened today, he immediately threw that plan out, knowing that it was never going to work.

Once he finally reached the tree, he decided to grab one of the peaches and take a bite as he sat down against the base, staring out into the distance as he reflected on his time spent here.

Admittedly, Po was still a little worried that Shifu was leading him on just to end up kicking him out of the palace, even after trying to convince himself that if Master Shifu was going to kick him out, he would have done it already. Still, he felt strangely relaxed about the whole ordeal despite the feeling in the back of his mind that he should be panicking about his status as a resident of the Jade Palace.

"Wow, this thing really does you some good." Po said to himself as he studied the half-eaten peach. "Maybe I should eat these more often."

Po's thoughts soon began to drift as he spaced out, remembering the weird vision he had during the battle at the village.

At first, Po was unsure as to what it meant, thinking that it may have been a side effect of the rage-induced rampage he was going through at the time, but after giving it some thought, he soon realized something was amiss.

Who was the old female panda who was in front of him? Ever since he could remember, he'd been led to believe that he was the only remaining panda left, a fact that led to a lot of scorn when it came to his days as a cub. Seeing this new panda in his vision, though, made him confused.

Po played the vision through his mind multiple times, trying to see if there was something he missed, but the only thing that he could think of that sounded vaguely important was the fact that the female panda was running away from a bunch of wolves after leaving…

"Wait a minute…" Po said to himself, realizing something else he might have missed.

After quickly collecting his thoughts, Po suddenly remembered that, while his initial focus was on the female panda that was in front of him, around the edges of his vision were two small black furred arms.

Po was initially unsure of how the arms tied into the mystery of who the panda was, but before he could try to process the new information through his head, he was suddenly wracked with a splitting headache.

As he clutched at his head to try and relieve the pressure, the same vision went through his head again, and this time he clearly heard the sound of a baby's cry, and the answer to Po's questions suddenly clicked in his mind.

"Mom?"

Po was shocked to say the least, but as he weighed the pros and cons in his head, he soon realized that it was most likely his own mother that was the panda in his vision.

This led to some further questions in Po's mind, though. Where is she, if she's even still alive? And why did he not realize until now that he actually did have panda parents?

The question of his real parents never really came up between himself and Mr. Ping, mostly because when he was young he actually believed that he came from an egg. Now that this came up, Po really felt that he needed to talk to his dad about it.

"That's certainly not going to be awkward." he said to himself, scoffing.

Unfortunately, as much as Po wanted to head down to the village right now and talk to his dad, he soon realized that it was getting close to the time when Master Shifu expected him, so he quickly stood up, slightly panicked, and began quickly jogging his way up to the Dragon Grotto.

* * *

Thankfully, Po managed to make it to the Grotto before his time was up, although he did end up having to pick up some speed near the end of his journey.

As he held the stitch in his side, Po looked into the darkness of the Grotto and found Master Shifu in the middle of the lake, balancing on his staff as he meditated.

"Master Shifu?" asked Po, wincing when his voice echoed throughout the grotto.

Thankfully, this ended up catching Shifu's attention, and after opening his eyes, he immediately backflipped off of the staff, landing on his feet and catching the staff in his hand just seconds later.

"Ah good, you're here."

It was then that Shifu noticed the worried look on Po's face.

"Something wrong, Dragon Warrior?"

Caught off guard, Po's open eye widened for a second before realizing that he needed to answer the question.

"No, I'm just…you never really gave me a straight answer about me still staying here at the palace. I mean, isn't what I did kind of against the kung-fu code or something?"

Shifu was forced to listen as Po launched into a long-winded explanation about how what he did would end up constituting banishment from the palace, but eventually the red panda had enough.

"Po!"

Po immediately shut up upon hearing Shifu's admonishment, his expression faltering when he realized that he might have done something wrong. However, to the panda's surprise, Shifu actually didn't look mad at all. In fact he looked positively pleasant, which came as a real shock from someone who knew Shifu as well as Po did.

"The only reason I wanted you to come up here is because I wanted to show you something…something that I think will help with your…anger problems."

Po was admittedly curious to see what Shifu had in mind, choosing to remain silent as he watched Master Shifu position himself in the center of the rock he was standing on, slowly breathing in and out to prepare himself for what he was about to show.

After a few seconds of silence, Po continued to watch as Master Shifu moved his right leg in a half-circle, his hands smoothly moving along with his foot as his eyes remained closed. Shifu then raised his right hand high into the air, and as Po looked up, he noticed a simple water droplet drip off of one of the stalactites inside the cave.

Po's eye widened once again, this time in wonder, as Master Shifu caught the raindrop in his outstretched hand, letting it travel all along his hands and sleeves before finally letting it roll on to a small plant next to him, the water droplet never breaking once.

"Whoa…" Po said, breathless as he watched the water droplet fall off of the plant into the water around Shifu.

Po immediately wanted to know what Master Shifu had done, his old fanboy tendencies coming through despite his time spent away trying to stamp that side of him down.

"What was that?" Po asked as he looked up at Master Shifu, a smile on the red panda's face.

"That…was Tai Chi."

"Aw, really?" asked Po, disappointed a bit by the sheer normalcy of Shifu's answer. However, what Shifu had to say next brought Po back up to his excited state.

"That wasn't just normal Tai Chi, though."

Master Shifu paused for a second to pick up his staff, Po listening with bated breath for what kind of cool thing the red panda would say next.

"This was one of Master Oogway's final teachings. Inner Peace."

"Inner Peace?" Po asked, slightly confused.

"Yes…Inner Peace. This is the next phase of your training."

"Oh, really? That's so cool! How do I learn that?"

Master Shifu paused, unable to resist smiling for a moment as he watched the old Po shine through, however temporarily.

"Every Master must choose their own path. There is no specific way for one to achieve Inner Peace."

As Master Shifu continued speaking, he immediately backflipped off of the rock, landing on top of his staff as it balanced on top of the water inside the cave.

"Some may choose to meditate inside a cave just like this one for fifty years, without the slightest taste of food or water."

Po considered trying that method out, considering he had some experience doing that kind of thing during his time away. However, even though Po had managed to curb some of the voracious appetite he used to have, as part of his path to getting to how he looked today, he didn't think he would be able to make it fifty years without food or water. Eating was still in his nature, being a giant panda and all.

"Or?" he asked, hoping that Master Shifu had another option for him to use.

"Or…some find it through pain and suffering, as I did…that day that you were chosen-"

"Okay, okay! I get the point!" said Po, stopping Master Shifu before he could launch into his story about how the day Oogway chose him as the Dragon Warrior was the worst day of his life.

While Po's memory of his time in the Valley before leaving on his journey was pretty fuzzy, he could clearly remember being forced to listen to that story on the day when he left, and it annoyed him back then as well.

"Anyway…" said Shifu, clearing his throat as a signal for them to move on.

"So…you're telling me that I need to go through some form of suffering before I'm able to find Inner Peace?"

"Those are just examples, Po. As I've said, each Master must find their own way to achieve Inner Peace."

"Great. As if I haven't had enough problems." said Po, sighing exasperatedly.

"I'm only doing this for your own good, Po. I really can't afford to have someone with a hair trigger temper like yours continue to reside at the palace. It's not safe for anyone else!"

Po opened his mouth to argue before he realized that Shifu was pretty much exactly right. There's no telling how many times he could let his anger get the best of him before he ended up getting someone hurt.

"Okay, Master Shifu. I understand, but I don't even know where to start. What can I do to achieve Inner Peace?"

"That's for you to find out, Dragon Warrior. Now, if you wouldn't mind giving me some privacy, I would like to spend some more time meditating."

By this point, Master Shifu had hopped off of his staff and was currently next to Po as he was talking, but he soon began making his way over to the rock that Po found him on top of when he came in.

However, before he could make it back to the water, Po suddenly realized that he needed to ask something else.

"Master Shifu!"

Shifu didn't answer, instead looking back at Po in annoyance as he was about to make his way across the water.

"I need to ask you about something really important."

Shifu considered simply telling Po to wait until he was back at the palace before asking, but curiosity came over him, and he walked over to where Po was standing as the panda was busy drawing something into a patch of dirt near the exit of the cave.

"Do you have any idea what this symbol means?"

Po pointed with the stick he was using towards the drawing, and Master Shifu stepped forwards to get a closer look at what turned out to be a large eye with sun rays poking out around the outside of the eye.

"I'm not sure." he said, his small hand against his chin as he tried to figure out what the symbol meant. "I seem to vaguely recall seeing something along these lines once or twice in my travels, but I can't remember for the life of me what it was."

Po frowned, disappointed at not being able to get an answer out of the one person he believed would have it.

"So you don't know? Man, this sucks!"

"Where did you learn of this symbol anyway?" asked Shifu, staring at Po curiously.

"I saw it on one of the bandits that we fought at the Musician's Village. He had it on his shoulder pads."

Po chose not to mention the fact that the symbol triggered the vision he had that lead to him nearly breaking his jaw, but thankfully Shifu was more concerned with what Po had actually said.

"Hmm, that's interesting. If I had to guess, they must belong to some kind of army of some sort."

Shifu fell silent once more as he thought things through.

"How about this? You can head down to the scroll room when you get back to the palace. Maybe it might have something about the meaning of this mysterious symbol."

"What about you?" asked Po.

"I'll meditate on the matter for a little while. I might be able to remember where it is I have seen it before."

Although Po was a little skeptical about how meditation could help recover long buried memories, he decided to follow along with Shifu's plan.

"Okay, Master Shifu. I'll head down there right now!"

Excited that he was finally getting somewhere, Po quickly ran out of the cave and down the pathway, heading towards the palace.

As for Master Shifu, he watched while Po disappeared before humming in approval, hopping over to the rock in the pool as he prepared to meditate.

* * *

Back at the Palace, the Furious Five were keeping themselves busy with some sparring matches outside on the grounds while the weather was still as beautiful as it was.

Crane and Monkey were currently duking it out, having finally gotten their own match between each other after their initial match was interrupted by the attack on the Musician's Village.

However, they were soon once again interrupted by Po barreling through the grounds, almost plowing through Mantis and Tigress, who were watching the sparring match as they effortlessly dodged out of the way.

"Hi, guys! Bye, guys!" Po said quickly, in a massive hurry to get to the scroll room.

"Po, where are you going?" asked Mantis, slightly annoyed at nearly getting squashed.

"To the scroll room! I need to look something up!" said Po, stopping in his tracks for a few moments so that he could tell them what was going on.

Luckily, Po stopping also had the added benefit of Tigress being able to catch a glint out of the corner of her eye thanks to looking in the general direction of Po.

Tigress immediately looked towards where the glint was coming from, and her eyes widened when she found that what the object was, and it was heading straight in Po's direction.

"Po! Get down!"

Tigress launched forwards on all fours, speeding her way towards Po and immediately tackling him to the ground before he could continue running towards the scroll room.

"What the heck was that, Tigress?" Po said, angry that he was suddenly thrown to the floor without warning.

"You should be thanking me, Po. I just saved you from getting shot in the back with an arrow." said Tigress, dusting herself off as she picked herself up from the ground.

Po, meanwhile, was slightly confused at what Tigress meant, but when he finally got a chance to look ahead of him, his eyes widened in shock when he noticed an arrow buried in the ground ten feet in front of him.

"Whoa…thanks, Tigress. I didn't even realize that was coming." he said, clutching at his scarred chest in an attempt to calm his rapidly beating heart.

"It was my pleasure. Now, do you want to read what that note says, or should I grab it?"

"What note?" Po asked, confused.

Tigress sighed, realizing that Po was still as oblivious as ever.

"The note attached to the arrow."

Po looked back at the arrow and noticed that there was indeed a roll of paper attached to the shaft of the arrow. Quickly rushing over, he pulled the arrow out of the ground and unrolled the note as he began to read.

However, as the Five watched Po read the note, they all noticed that his non-scarred eye was getting wider and wider after every few seconds, the panda shocked as he took in what the note said. Eventually, Po's paw went up to his face as he covered his mouth, the note calmly dropping to the ground as he fell to the ground in a seated position.

"What does the note say?" asked Crane, concerned after seeing the turmoil Po was going through.

Po didn't answer immediately, his brain still in the middle of processing the contents of the note. Eventually, though, Po managed to look up towards the Five, and they all knew something was horribly wrong when they noticed the haunted look on the Dragon Warrior's face.

"Master Thundering Rhino…he's dead."

* * *

 **Sorry for the random note after the downer ending, but I just wanted to tell you guys that Lord Shen will officially be coming into the story next chapter, so look forward to that.**


	12. Chapter 12

"What?"

Most of the Furious Five was stunned into silence by Po's proclamation of Master Thundering Rhino's demise, but Tigress felt a little differently, as she immediately went over and gingerly picked up the note.

As she read through it, though, her eyes widened in shock when she realized that Po wasn't just playing a cruel joke.

"How? How can someone like Master Thundering Rhino be cut down just like that?" she asked, clutching the note at her side in one of her paws.

"Keep reading."

Tigress glanced over at Po, who was the one who spoke, surprised that he was still able to say something considering the state he was in.

"'By some form of weapon that uses fireworks'? Po, what does that even mean?"

"Beats me. Although, to be honest, I do remember hearing while I was away that some peacocks managed to create something that I believe they called fireworks. Maybe that has something to do with it." said Po as he stood up, thankfully recovered from his bout of shock.

"Oh yeah, I remember hearing about that, too. Apparently they're supposed to make these beautiful explosions of color in the sky." said Crane.

"I kind of wish that I could see them. It sounds pretty cool." said Mantis, looking wistfully off into the distance.

"Anyway, this still doesn't explain what the letter meant by 'some form of weapon that uses fireworks'." said Tigress, gesturing towards the note still in her paw.

Everyone was silent, none of them having really any idea of how the weapon and the fireworks tie together, which was reasonable considering the new territory they were dealing with.

Tigress sighed, having expected something like this to happen.

"Come on, everyone. We need to go see Master Shifu about this."

"Wait!"

Tigress stopped in her tracks, whirling around to find that it was Po who spoke out.

"What is it, Po? It's really important that Master Shifu knows about this."

"I know that! I just…shouldn't we wait for Master Shifu to finish meditating up there at the Grotto? I mean, you know how he doesn't like being interrupted."

Tigress gave Po an unimpressed look, noticing the fake smile that Po plastered on his face, but she sighed, realizing that there was no reason to head right back out so soon after getting back from the Musician's Village.

"Fine. We'll wait for Master Shifu to return, but once he comes back, we tell him everything about this letter, and then we'll go from there."

Tigress didn't look too happy, but Po was more than willing to take the compromise, as he honestly still didn't want them to know about the weird symbol he was seeing in his visions, as well as the connection to his parents.

As Po and the Five engaged in some more sparring to keep themselves limber, Viper couldn't help but be curious about the letter, thinking that there must have been something else that they were missing.

"Hey, Po?"

"Yeah?" asked Po, turning his head towards Viper as he was busy watching Crane and Monkey finally spar.

"Where did that letter come from anyway?"

"Excuse me?"

"Um…did there happen to be any mention of a place inside the letter? I assume that must be where whoever wrote the letter was coming from."

"Oh! Uh, I think I remember the letter mentioning Gongmen City once or twice. Why?"

"No reason. I was just curious, and to be honest, this could help us out so we know where to go if this weapon turns out to be a problem."

"Oh yeah, that's true. I didn't even think about it."

Po weighed this new information in his mind for a few minutes before deciding to focus on the sparring match in front of him. Hopefully Master Shifu would have a better idea of what to do with this possible new threat in their midst.

* * *

As the masters of the Jade Palace continued to process the news of Master Thundering Rhino's demise, hundreds of miles from the Valley of Peace sat the imposing city of Gongmen. A bustling village surrounded a pair of massive towers that adorned the center of the city.

Now, most people seeing the city for the first time would probably believe that Gongmen City was just a normal monarchy, as in the villagers lived under the rule of someone of royalty. While that is technically true, life in Gongmen City was harder than people would have expected.

For one thing, the death of Master Thundering Rhino, as well as the incarceration of Master Storming Ox and Master Croc has led to some dark times for the city. Wolves freely walk among the streets, threatening and shaking down the villagers in whatever way they felt like.

The villagers were living in constant fear, which was perfectly within reason considering who they had leading their city now.

Inside one of the towers, the one referred to by the citizens of Gongmen as the Tower of Sacred Flame, there were three different people standing inside the large room on the top floor. One of them was a large wolf with a scar over his eye, the same exact wolf that Po and the Furious Five met during the attack on the Musician's Village.

The second person, a wizened old goat working as a soothsayer, was sitting off to the side of the others, keeping herself busy by adding some more ingredients to her bowl in an attempt to block out the argument that was going on. However, that was easier said than done.

As for the third person in the room, he was the most important person of all, being the de facto ruler of Gongmen City. He was an albino peacock, a white silk robe adorning his form as he did his best to look important in the face of his underlings.

"I thought I told you that we had already eliminated all of them years ago! Why are you now standing in front of me telling me that I've apparently missed one?"

"You don't understand, Lord Shen! I saw what I saw! That panda fought like a demon! I wouldn't have made it back if I hadn't noticed what was going on in time."

"And frankly it wouldn't have been that big of a loss." mumbled Shen as he looked away from the Wolf Boss for a moment.

The room fell silent as Shen considered his next course of action, the Wolf Boss afraid to speak up and risk retaliation.

"Hm, no matter. Prepare your subordinates for our guests' arrival. I'll make sure that I don't miss another panda this time."

"Um, sir?"

"What is it?" asked Shen, a hint of disdain in his voice.

"What makes you think that the panda would want to come to the city?"

Shen glared at the Wolf Boss for a few seconds before finally deciding to answer his question.

"It's quite easy to explain, actually."

Shen smiled devilishly before walking over to the middle of the room, where there was a raised platform on which sat a giant cannon with two gorillas flanking it, a dragon carved out of the front to make it look more imposing.

Once he made it to the top of the stairs that led to the platform, he turned back towards the Wolf Boss, still smiling as he visualized his plan in his mind.

"Now that word has traveled out about that rhino's death thanks to this glorious piece of craftsmanship here, they will obviously want to come to Gongmen to destroy this weapon and attempt to stop me, which they will fail. Once they're captured, I can finally eliminate that blasted panda once and for all, and nothing will stop me from taking over China!"

"And how do you plan on eliminating them, sir?"

Shen glared once more at the Wolf Boss, annoyed by the constant questions.

"With the weapon, of course! It makes things so much better for the kung-fu masters to finally meet their ends with something that they have no idea how to comprehend."

Shen immediately began planning the act in his head, framing the exact spot where the masters would be placed so that the weapon would cause the most damage. However, he soon noticed that something was amiss, as he turned towards the gorilla guards.

"However, I am a bit of a perfectionist, though. I'm not just going to fire the weapon at them and call it a day. I want to make it interesting! That's why I want it in the perfect position. A little to the left, please."

"But Lord Shen! This weapon's really heavy!"

"And I don't care. A little to the left!"

Reluctantly, the two gorilla guards lifted the cannon in their arms, shifting it over to the left a little before setting it down again.

"A little bit more." said Shen, absentmindedly waving his wing towards the left as he turned towards the Wolf Boss.

Once the gorilla guards had finished shifting the weapon to Shen's wishes, the peacock smiled, knowing that it was now in the perfect position.

"There we are. Now, I believe I asked for you to prepare everyone for the arrival of our guests. Why are you still standing there?"

The Wolf Boss nearly jumped; frightened after realizing that he was still standing in the room even after being given the order.

"Yes, Lord Shen! I'll get on it right away!"

The Wolf Boss immediately ran down the stairs, leaving Shen and the Soothsayer alone with the gorillas standing by.

"Well, it seems that your little prophecy is about to be proven wrong. How does that make you feel?" asked Shen as he turned towards the Soothsayer.

"I don't claim to be completely perfect in my predictions, Lord Shen. Fate can be very unpredictable sometimes." said the Soothsayer, an unimpressed look on her face.

"Oh really? Why don't you give me one of your so-called imperfect fortunes then? We can see whether fate is as unpredictable as you say."

The Soothsayer really wasn't interested in being Shen's play toy when it came to using her powers of foresight, but she didn't really have much of a choice considering she was still employed by Shen's family.

As Shen began walking down towards her, she decided to have a little fun and mess with Shen a bit, spreading some of the ingredients around in her bowl as she closed her eyes.

"If you continue on your current path, you will find yourself…at the bottom of the stairs."

Shen looked down at his feet and realized that he had indeed reached the bottom of the stairs just as the Soothsayer said he would. However, as much as Shen wanted to berate her for screwing around, he couldn't really do so because he'd promised himself not to allow her any harm after how long she'd spent taking care of him while he was young.

So, Shen continued walking towards her, rolling his eyes as he waited to see if she would have anything else to say. Once the Soothsayer had finished getting over her moment, she stared at her bowl, still in the mood to play around for a bit.

"I see…I see…"

Shen watched in wonder as the Soothsayer continued to stare into the bowl, but what came next came as a complete surprise to the peacock lord.

"Pain."

She immediately plucked one of the feathers out of Shen's wing, causing Shen to recoil back.

"Ow! What the-"

"And anger."

Without waiting for Shen to finish, the Soothsayer picked up a chunk of Shen's robe and chomped down on it.

"Hey! This is the finest silk in the province!" said Shen, pulling his robe out of the Soothsayer's jaws, only for a chunk to fall off.

"Followed by denial." said the Soothsayer, continuing on as if she hadn't heard Shen's outburst.

"This isn't fortune telling! You're just saying what's happening right-"

"Now?"

Shen glared at the Soothsayer for a few moments, annoyed that she was continuing to screw around with him, but eventually he sighed in defeat, knowing that she was too strong of a character to break.

"It does not matter what you have done to prevent it, Lord Shen. The prophecy has not changed."

The Soothsayer immediately threw a fistful of powder into her bowl, setting it alight as the blue flames formed pictures in front of Shen's face.

"A peacock will be defeated by a warrior of black and white. As much as I have tried rereading it, that is what has come to me more often than not."

Angered, Shen pulled a throwing knife out of his sleeve, chucking it with lightning speed and shattering the bowl.

As the vision faded into nothingness, Shen glared at the Soothsayer, the old goat's expression remaining firm. Eventually, though, Shen sighed once again, turning away from the Soothsayer as he took in the large cannon on top of the pedestal.

"No matter. With my weapon in hand, not even that stupid panda and his friends will be able to stop me, and once they're gone, there's nothing to stop me from eliminating kung-fu forever!"

As the Soothsayer looked on, Shen strode over to an open window, looking down upon the city of Gongmen as he smiled devilishly.

* * *

Back at the Jade Palace, the Furious Five and Po were continuing to spar, happy to at least find something to keep their minds off of the impending problems that they were going to have to deal with.

Unfortunately, they were soon interrupted in their training when Po suddenly noticed a figure coming from over the horizon, and he was immediately able to tell who it was considering the direction they were coming from.

"Master Shifu!"

Po rushed over to the newly returned Master, bowing once he finally managed to reach him.

"It's good to see you again, Dragon Warrior. Did you go down to the scroll room like I asked of you?" he asked as he returned the bow.

Po was about to answer when he suddenly realized that he completely forgot to.

"Uh…well, here's the thing."

Po noticed Shifu's ear twitch in annoyance, but thankfully he appeared to look past the slight as he turned towards the Five.

"Students! I have some grave news."

The Five walked forwards and bowed towards Master Shifu as well.

"Does this have something to do with Master Thundering Rhino, Master Shifu?" asked Tigress.

This ended up catching Shifu off guard, as he was already prepared to share the news about Thundering Rhino's death to them.

"You already knew?"

Tigress handed the note over to Master Shifu, and he quickly scanned through it, realizing that it contained practically everything that he knew about the predicament.

"Well, at least this will save us a few steps." he said, nonchalantly stuffing the note in his robe.

"What do you wish for us to do about this new weapon, Master Shifu?" asked Po in an attempt to move the conversation along.

Shifu sighed before addressing the group.

"My orders are for you and the Five to infiltrate Gongmen City. Find the weapon, destroy it and take the creator into custody. We must not allow him to create a new weapon and terrorize China once again. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Master Shifu!" said everyone, bowing before heading their separate ways to prepare for the journey ahead of them.

"Dragon Warrior, if I may speak with you in private for a moment?"

Po looked back to see that Master Shifu was looking right at him, a mixture of sadness and nervousness on his face.

"Did you find out what that symbol meant?" asked Po, looking expectantly at Shifu.

"Unfortunately, no, but I do have some other unfortunate news to share."

"Wait, I thought it was already established that Master Thundering Rhino was no longer with us."

"I know, Po, but this is really important. I've received a message from the Universe and it concerns your parents. Your real parents."

Master Shifu sighed, noticing Po's look of confusion as he quickly steeled himself for what was going to happen next.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Po, but your parents were killed in a bandit attack while you were still a cub."


	13. Chapter 13

Po stood, stunned, as he registered what Shifu said.

While Po did have a bit of a feeling that something was wrong considering he never ran into another panda once as far back as he could remember, he certainly didn't expect to hear that they were suddenly dead.

"I need to go see my dad."

"Po, wait!" said Shifu, reaching his hand out towards the panda.

Po ignored Shifu's attempt to stop him, rushing towards the Thousand Steps and not even sparing a glance back at the red panda as he disappeared over the horizon.

As for Shifu, he lowered his hand to his side, sighing heavily.

"Why did you need to tell me now, Master Oogway? The Dragon Warrior is conflicted enough as he is." said Shifu to himself as he stared into the sky, hoping that the wise old turtle would give him a sign as for what to do next.

Unfortunately, the sky was as clear as ever, and there was no sign of anything moving around that caught Master Shifu's attention, so he adjusted his grip on his staff, sighing once more before heading into the barracks to oversee the preparations for the journey to Gongmen.

* * *

Po continued to rush down the Thousand Steps at a pace that most would think was asking for him to trip and fall down the rest of the steps, but thankfully Po was able to keep his balance the entire time down.

Once he reached the bottom of the steps, he quickly rushed towards his dad's noodle shop, the path between the two places becoming second nature to Po ever since he first came to the Palace.

Eventually, he finally came to a stop in front of the shop, not wanting to scare the customers by barging through the narrowly spaced tables and cause damage.

Po slowly made his way through the tables; apologizing to anyone he bumped into before he finally made it to the kitchen, where his dad was currently cooking another batch of soup. However, when Mr. Ping finally looked up to check on how the customers were doing, he was surprised to find his son standing quietly in front of the kitchen.

"Po! You're back!" he said, smiling.

Mr. Ping quickly made his way through the doorway into the dining area, wrapping his arms around Po's midsection in an apparent hug, only to reveal an apron tied tightly around him when his dad released him.

"Good, I could really use some help around here. Now, if you wouldn't mind-"

"Dad."

Mr. Ping didn't hear Po at first, considering he was too busy listing off what he needed help with, but Po was undeterred, wanting to get what he needed to get off of his chest as soon as he could.

"Dad!"

Mr. Ping finally became quiet after hearing Po's outburst, turning towards his son to find that he'd untied his apron and was handing it back over to him.

"I'm sorry, dad. I'd love to help you, but the Furious Five and I are heading out to Gongmen City pretty soon."

"Gongmen City?! But that's hundreds of miles away!" exclaimed Mr. Ping.

"I know, Dad, but we kind of have to. Apparently there's this warlord that has some kind of weapon that no one seems to know how to fight against, and we have to go there and destroy it. He killed Master Thundering Rhino, dad!"

Rather than being reassured, Mr. Ping looked even more worried, having noticed Po mentioning the fact that no one knew how to fight against this weapon he spoke of.

"But how can you destroy a weapon that you have no idea how to fight against? It just doesn't make any sense, son!"

"I'm sure we'll figure out a way, dad. We've done it before."

Mr. Ping still looked pretty worried, so Po decided that he needed to bring out an example.

"Remember Tai Lung? I only managed to figure out just what I was capable of because of that speech you gave me about the secret ingredient. This can't be that much different."

Mr. Ping was admittedly still worried about the unknown factors that Po and the Five were going to run into, but so many years of raising him has taught the goose that once Po had something in mind, there was no way that he was going to be convinced to avoid doing it unless there was an absolutely good reason.

Sighing, Mr. Ping turned towards Po, a sad look on his face as he took in the sight of his scarred son.

"Okay, son. I understand. Just…please be safe, alright?"

"Of course I will, dad. I've always done my best to stay safe."

Even though Mr. Ping would disagree, remembering Po's battle with Tai Lung, he still smiled, happy that Po was being the way he was being.

As for Po himself, he was happy that he managed to convince his dad that he was going to be safe as long as he was with the Five. As he prepared to leave the noodle shop and head up to pack his things, though, he suddenly remembered what he was originally here for.

"Hey, dad? I've got a question."

"Yes, son?"

Po sighed, realizing that this was probably going to be a tough question before finally deciding to ask it.

"Dad, who are my real parents?"

As Po predicted, Mr. Ping's eyes widened in surprise, as he really didn't expect to get asked that kind of question. When he answered, though, Po was surprised right back.

"I'm sorry, Po. I don't know who your parents are. I don't even know what they look like."

"Wh-Then how did I even get here?" asked Po, flabbergasted.

"Actually, I found you inside a radish basket."

Po's expression suddenly turned into a look of confusion, as he registered what his dad had said.

"Huh? A radish basket?"

Mr. Ping, noticing Po's confusion, gestured for Po to join him as the two of them sat down at an empty table.

"Now, I'm sure you probably don't remember this, considering you were still a cub at the time, but I've owned this noodle shop for a very long time. Way longer than I wish to count, to be honest.

Mr. Ping glanced at Po for a second before continuing on.

"Anyway, way back when I was still developing what you now know as my Secret Ingredient Soup. I actually tried using radishes as my secret ingredient once. It didn't work out."

Po was curious, having noticed the secretive way that his dad had mentioned his failed secret ingredient.

"Why didn't it work out?"

"There's a very limited amount of time while it's at its peak freshness where it would taste the best in the soup, but that's not the point."

Mr. Ping paused, collecting his thoughts.

"There was this one morning when I went out behind the shop to collect my normal shipment of radishes, but when I looked inside, I found that all of the radishes were either half eaten or simply gone! I was confused at first, wondering where the radishes went, when I saw who else was occupying the basket."

"Let me guess. Me?"

"Yes, you! It turns out that you'd eaten most of the radishes while you were being transported here."

"So, you decided to take me in, then?"

"Well, not at first. I collected all of the rest of my delivery, but when I was walking away, I heard you crying. After mentally kicking myself, I made myself a promise."

"What's that?"

"To never use radishes in my soup again."

Mr. Ping paused, looking at Po and expecting him to have followed the attempt at a joke, only to find another look of confusion on Po's face which forced him to backtrack.

"Oh, and I also agreed to look after you as if you were my own son, which as you can see, I've never broken."

Po smiled, remembering that his dad had in fact never broken that promise, but his face soon fell when he realized that he was the only person who could keep that promise.

"Please never leave me, dad. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"What? I'd never leave you, Po! What makes you think I'd do that?" asked Mr. Ping, surprised.

"Master Shifu told me…he told me that my actual parents were…were killed. Dad, you're my only family left."

Po was barely managing to hold back his tears at this point as the realization finally hit him. Despite the inkling feeling in the back of his mind that something was strange (considering he could only see his mother during the visions he had), he finally broke down.

Thankfully, Mr. Ping was there to comfort him, reaching a wing up to Po's broad shoulder as he attempted to comfort him. Eventually, he moved his wing down and wrapped both of them around his son, and thankfully that managed to do the trick, as Po's sobs subsided soon after.

"Po, I promise that, no matter what happens, I will never leave you. Even if your duties as Dragon Warrior take you far away from the Valley, I will always be there with you."

"Whoa, I don't want you to follow me there, Dad! It's way too dangerous outside of the Valley." said Po, surprised.

"I meant in spirit, Po." said Mr. Ping flatly.

"Oh…sorry." said Po, nervously chuckling.

Mr. Ping couldn't resist chuckling himself, and as he stood up, he turned towards his son, who was still seated.

"I think you'd better be getting back to the palace, Po. I think the masters might be waiting for you up there."

Po stood up, wiping his eyes with his arm before smiling at his dad.

"Thanks for the help, dad. I don't know if I would have been able to take this kind of news by myself."

"Well, I'm always here if you need someone to talk to, son."

Po was about to head to the exit of the shop as he prepared to head back up to the palace, but before he could, Mr. Ping suddenly realized something important.

"Oh! I almost forgot! I need to pack you some food."

"Oh no, you don't have to…"

Po attempted to tell his dad that he didn't have to go through all of this trouble, but Mr. Ping was undeterred.

"Get back up to the palace, Po! I'll have everything ready for you when you and the Furious Five are about to leave." said Mr. Ping as he rushed this way and that through the kitchen.

Although Po was still a little hesitant to allow his dad to do this kind of thing, he simply shrugged before heading through the doorway and into the marketplace.

* * *

With how long he spent down at the marketplace, Po had a feeling that his dad was right, and the others were probably going to be already packed and waiting for him up at the palace, so he was forced to rush up the Thousand Steps.

This would be a daunting task for the old Po, but the new Po had no problem getting up to the top, only ending up just a little winded from the speed he went.

After taking a moment to smile after being reminded of the fact that the stairs were no longer his enemy, Po walked towards the barracks, only to find that the Five were indeed all packed, which was just as his dad predicted.

"Po, where have you been? We're wasting valuable time here!" said Tigress, an annoyed look on her face.

"Tigress, don't be like that!" said Viper, attempting to chide the normally hot headed Tiger-style master, but Po had managed to beat her to the punch.

"I'm sorry, you guys. I really needed to go talk to my dad for a bit, and I got held up."

Tigress was noticeably surprised, as she was fully expecting Po to make some kind of excuse.

"You sure you're going to be alright, Po? You look…kind of freaked out about something." asked Crane, noticing the expression that Po had on his face.

"I'm fine. Just give me a minute to pack and I'll be right out."

Without waiting for an answer, Po rushed over to the barracks as he headed towards his room.

As for the Five, they all stood staring at Po's retreating form, remaining silent except for Mantis who was on Crane's shoulder as he leaned towards the avian's ear.

"I think I noticed something up as well, Crane. Do you think we should probably keep an eye on him?" he whispered.

Rather than answer, Crane shushed him.

"What? I'm just trying to be careful here!"

"I know. I just don't want him to think we're spying on him. He's already got that hair trigger temper. Just imagine what he can do if he finds us doing that."

Mantis immediately shut his mouth, realizing that Crane was right. As much as he was worried about Po's well-being, he figured that it was probably best to leave the panda be.

Eventually, Po returned, followed by Master Shifu, Mantis assuming that the red panda was there to see him off. However, the worried look on Shifu's face as he followed next to Po made the small kung-fu master wonder just what was going on between the two of them.

His thoughts were soon interrupted, however, when Po joined the rest of them, his pack noticeably lighter-looking compared to the rest of them, but they were all aware of the sparse amenities that the Dragon Warrior kept in his room since he returned.

"Students!"

Everyone stood at attention as Master Shifu paced back and forth between them.

"I have sent Zeng ahead to charter a boat that will take you straight to Gongmen City. Head for the nearest harbor. The boat and crew should be ready by the time you get there."

"Yes, Master Shifu." said everyone as they bowed.

"Also…please be careful. We do not know what we are going up against with this weapon."

Shifu sighed, collecting his thoughts for a moment before continuing.

"Above all, do not under any circumstances do anything reckless."

Everyone else bowed once again, showing that they understood.

"Goodbye, my students. I shall await your safe return."

This time, Shifu bowed towards them, holding the position for a few more seconds than usual before straightening up again.

Just as Po and the Five prepared to make their way down the Thousand Steps, though, Master Shifu called out to them.

"Po!"

The panda looked back, wondering what Shifu could want.

"Remember what I've taught you, Dragon Warrior."

Po nodded, noting in his mind to find some time to practice during their journey to the city.

Finally, with everything taken care of, Po and the Five made their way down the stairs and into the marketplace, only to run into Mr. Ping, a large sack in his wings that he seemed to barely be able to hold on to.

"Here you go, son. Just as I promised."

Mr. Ping handed the sack over to Po, and as he opened it up, he found it filled with all kinds of vegetables and other non-perishable items.

"Thanks, dad. You really didn't have to do this, you know."

"Nonsense, Po! What kind of father would I be if I let you go on a dangerous journey without having something to keep you fed?"

Po chuckled once more, realizing that his dad did have a point. Walking forwards, he wrapped his arms around his dad, giving him a huge hug before finally letting him go a few seconds later.

"Come on, Po. Let's go." said a noticeably subdued Tigress, gesturing for Po to follow her.

After waving goodbye to Mr. Ping, Po placed the straw hat he had originally returned to the valley with on his head, readjusting his pack and his vest before finally joining the Furious Five as they began their journey to Gongmen City.


	14. Chapter 14

After a few days of traveling, with some breaks interspersed in between, Po and the Furious Five found themselves inside the harbor that Master Shifu had told them to go to.

As they walked through the surprisingly bustling harbor, Po couldn't help but look around at all of the villagers going about their business.

For the most part, the villagers were leaving the six of them alone, but there were some that Po noticed whispering to each other, causing the panda to begin to feel a little awkward.

Admittedly, at first he was thinking that they were just noticing the fact that the Furious Five of all people were gracing their presence, but then he began to notice that most of the looks the villagers were giving were towards him.

Now, he would be the first to admit that he wasn't the prettiest face in the crowd, especially now that he looks as intimidating as he does, but it still made him feel a little self-conscious, so he tried his best to ignore them.

"Hey Tigress, can you see our boat yet?" he asked quietly, wanting to get out of there as fast as he could.

Tigress chose to ignore that question, not wanting to dignify it with an answer, but thankfully she didn't have to, as they soon reached the river at the other end of the harbor, and the six of them soon laid eyes on a modest looking fishing vessel.

"Well…I was certainly expecting something a little more substantial than this."

"Mantis!" hissed Viper.

"What? That looks barely capable of holding all of us!"

"Actually, it can hold way more than just six people."

The Five and Po whipped around to face the source of the new speaker to find that it was actually Zeng, who had somehow managed to sneak up on them while they were busy taking in their transportation. Both Po and Tigress seemed to notice the fact that he looked a lot calmer than he usually was, but they mostly attributed it to the low danger level this job had.

"Really? It doesn't seem that big to me." commented Crane.

"Well, according to the captain, he's had some pretty large crews on expeditions on that ship before, so he knows pretty well how much capacity it can hold."

"That's good news." said Monkey.

"Anyway, thank you for getting the ship set up for us. This should save us some time getting out to Gongmen City." said Tigress.

"You're welcome, Master Tigress. I should be getting back to the palace, anyway. I can't imagine what Master Shifu must be thinking without me around."

"Neither can I." said Tigress quietly as she watched Zeng lift off and fly into the distance.

After Zeng finally disappeared over the horizon, Tigress turned around and began heading towards the ship.

"Come on, let's get a move on."

As the six kung-fu masters made their way towards the ship, they soon ran into who they presumed was the ship's captain, and Tigress immediately bowed, the others following suit as they showed their appreciation.

"Thank you for allowing us to use your boat to get to Gongmen City. Hopefully there's something we can do to repay you for your generosity."

"Oh no, it's fine. I was planning on taking a vacation from sailing anyway. The missus hates being alone all the time." said the captain, a burly-looking croc that came as a surprise to Po considering he only ever saw crocodiles as bandits.

"Really? That's wonderful that you're spending time with your family." said Viper, earning her a smile from the initially surly-looking captain.

"Yeah, that's great and all, but who's going to take us to Gongmen then? Not to be rude or anything." said Po, his tone earning him a look from Viper.

Thankfully, the captain didn't notice, judging from the smile that he had on.

"Oh, that'll be my first mate taking you. Whenever your messenger bird came through, I think he said his name was Zeng or something, I spoke to him and he agreed to take you there."

"Is he around?" asked Tigress.

"Unfortunately no. He's making final preparations right now for departing, but I believe that you should be able to meet him once you all board."

Tigress admittedly wanted to get all of the pleasantries out of the way as soon as possible so that they could focus on the impending battle ahead of them, but she figured that since the first mate was already on the ship, it wouldn't be too much of a big deal to wait.

"We should be going. Thanks again for the help!" she said as she began making her way to the ship.

As the others followed behind her, having bowed to the captain in thanks as well, Po noticed the look of apprehension on Tigress's face, which made him wonder exactly what was making the Tiger-style master so antsy to get going.

Unfortunately, by the time they all boarded the ship, they were all being immediately herded towards the interior of the ship as the small crew had just finished preparations and were about to lift off. Po didn't really get much of a chance to think about the reasoning behind Tigress's actions, but he figured that there would be more than enough time to ask her while they were on the boat.

* * *

A few days passed as the group continued to travel along the river. The boredom soon began to set in, which was made worse because of the fact that the first mate refused to let them spar while on the boat. As much as this was disappointing to everyone, they did realize that they weren't exactly on a stable surface.

During one evening, everyone was sleeping inside the canopy, as they all chose to turn in for the night, having nothing to do while the boat continued to sail along.

Not everyone was fast asleep, however, as Po was rolling around in his sleep, sweat caking his entire body as he was having another nightmare.

"Agh!"

Po eventually woke up, breathing hard as he tried to calm his rapidly beating heart.

After finally calming himself down, he soon realized that he was having the same nightmare he was having for years, a fact that he was starting to really hate.

"Ugh, not again." he whispered quietly, looking towards the sky in a gesture of annoyance as he rubbed at his face with his hands.

After a few seconds, Po decided that he needed some air, so he picked himself up off of his bedroll, careful not to wake up the others as he made his way out from under the small boathouse towards the stern.

Once he reached the back of the boat, he spent some time staring at the setting sun, wondering what it was going to take to get him to stop having the same nightmare over and over again.

Short of apologizing to each of the villagers he hurt one by one, though, he couldn't think of any other way to calm his conflicted conscience. However, as he prepared to go back to sleep, though, he suddenly remembered something very important that completely slipped his mind while they were traveling.

"Oh, that's right. I should be trying to figure out this whole Inner Peace thing Master Shifu taught me." he said to himself, mentally kicking himself for forgetting to use the valuable practice time he had.

Unfortunately, he still had absolutely no clue how he was going to achieve such a state, especially now that he was aware of the fact that not only was Mr. Ping not his real dad, but his real parents might just be both dead.

Still, this didn't stop him. After spending some time to clear his jumbled mind, Po closed his eyes, letting his right foot flow as he performed the exact movements that he remembered seeing Master Shifu performed back at the Dragon Grotto.

Before he could completely finish the movements, Po's thoughts were interrupted by a light plink on the top of his head. Opening his eyes, Po looked upwards, confused for a moment. When nothing happened, Po shrugged, closing his eyes once more and going through the movements.

Unfortunately, like last time, Po was interrupted once more by a drop on his head. Po tried multiple times to ignore what he figured was probably water from the recent rains, but the drops soon increased in timing, and Po became increasingly annoyed.

Finally, the panda couldn't take it anymore, and he began rapidly punching at the mast.

"Why! Won't! You! Just! Leave! Me! Alone!"

He didn't even care enough to keep his voice down, the constant dripping getting very much under his skin, even far enough that he gave the mast a few light headbutts just so that he could vent.

However, this only earned him a drenching, as the shaking the mast was going through ended up shaking a lot more water off of it and on to Po.

"Oh, that is it!" said Po, pointing up at the mast.

Before he could do something he regretted, he was suddenly interrupted by a noise of someone clearing their throat.

Looking upwards, Po ended up finding none other than Tigress, standing on top of the boathouse, a stern look on her face.

"Um…hi." said Po. "I was just…training."

"Really? It looks to me like you were about to tear the mast down and strand us." said Tigress, looking unimpressed.

"No, I wasn't." said Po, adopting an innocent look. This, however, was easier said than done considering having only one eye being able to open made him look suspicious by default.

Tigress, still quite unimpressed with Po, gave a noncommittal grunt before flipping off of the roof, landing gracefully behind Po.

"Either way, the mast isn't a worthy opponent, even for you, Po."

Tigress then held out her right paw.

"I'm ready."

Po, caught off guard by Tigress's change in demeanor, stared at her outstretched paw for a few moments, before shrugging.

Adopting a fighting stance, Po threw his fist out towards Tigress's paw as hard as he could, a loud thunk reverberating once they made contact.

The two of them froze, the two appendages remaining in contact for a few more seconds before Po removed his paw, hissing in pain as he shook it out.

"God, that stung! What's the deal with your hand? It feels like I punched a stone wall!" complained Po.

"Well, that can happen when you've spent as much time as I have punching the ironwood trees outside of the palace." said Tigress, her palm remaining outstretched.

Po couldn't help but be curious after hearing Tigress mention that fact, as he remembered doing something similar to that during his journey outside of the valley.

"Really? And how long did that take you?"

"Twenty years. I've lost count at how many times I came home, fists torn to shreds. The first few years weren't fun, but I persevered."

Po let out a low whistle as he began punching at Tigress's palm, practicing some of his forms as they continued to speak.

"Man, I don't think I'd be able to manage doing something like that for twenty years. I only managed to do two punching some rock walls before I had to give up."

Po paused for a moment in his movements, allowing Tigress to put two and two together as she realized that must have been the reason why Po's paws looked so weathered when he first returned.

As for Po himself, he was busy thinking for a moment as well, but his expression soon brightened when he got an idea.

"Hey! Maybe you can show me a bit of your techniques! I'd love to learn how you can manage to do that kind of thing for twenty years and feel no pain. That sounds really cool!"

Tigress was slightly taken aback by some of the old Po slipping through, but before she could ask about it, Po managed to calm himself down and he immediately returned to sparring with Tigress's palm, forcing her to concentrate on catching the panda's attacks.

"No offense, Po, but I don't think hard style is your thing. You seem to be…kind of in the middle."

"How so?"

Tigress was admittedly unsure of how to explain her thought process, considering the other side of the spectrum from her style of kung-fu was initially created by the panda standing across from her, so she didn't know exactly what to think of it. Still, though, she tried her best to form at least a coherent explanation.

"You remember panda style, right? That…unconventional…style of kung-fu you used to beat Tai Lung ten years ago." she said, using the first word she could think of to describe it.

"Yeah, I do." said Po, nodding.

"Well, the way I'd describe how you're fighting now is panda style with a lot more power behind it."

"But…I haven't been using my belly. Isn't that kind of the basis of panda-style?" asked Po, confused.

"Look, you're the one who created it! You tell me!" said Tigress, exasperated.

Po fell silent, considering Tigress's words, which forced the Tiger-style master to sigh in defeat.

"What I'm trying to say is that you seem to be using panda-style like you normally do, but you're not incorporating the more…offbeat…moves." said Tigress, struggling to come up with ways to explain herself. "I'm assuming that must be why you lost all that weight."

"Yeah, pretty much."

Po paused for a few seconds to think about what Tigress said before it finally clicked.

"Oh, okay! I get you."

Tigress was once again surprised, as she was fully expecting him not to get it thanks to her clumsy explanation, but thankfully she didn't have to go any further.

Po sat down on the floor as Tigress thought, staring off into the distance as he reflected on what she had said. However, when Tigress managed to pull herself out of her thoughts, she noticed the look of apprehension on the Dragon Warrior's face and felt the need to ask him about it, wanting to avoid any future problems when it really mattered.

"Something on your mind, Po?" she asked as she sat down next to him.

Admittedly there has been a lot on Po's mind, but there wasn't a lot that he would have been willing to share, so he decided just to go with something he wouldn't have minded sharing.

"I just found out my dad isn't my real dad."

This wasn't something that she would have expected to hear from Po, causing her to pause, perplexed.

"Your dad…the goose?"

Po nodded.

"That must have been quite a shock." she said flatly.

"You don't know the half of it." Po thought as his expression remained neutral.

"So…did you find out who your real parents were?"

Po shook his head.

"No, my dad didn't know when I asked him. I did find out that I used to live in a village full of pandas, though."

"Really? Did something happen to them?" asked Tigress, admittedly curious.

Unfortunately, Tigress's question ended up breaching a subject that Po didn't really want to talk about. His face fell as his expression darkened.

Thankfully, Tigress seemed to get the point, but she did manage to get somewhat of an idea from Po's expression. Still, though, she felt that it wasn't the appropriate time to ask about it, so she remained silent.

She didn't get to remain silent, however, as she suddenly noticed something going off in the distance. Picking herself up off of the ground, she soon found a large and ornate city in the direction of where she was looking.

"That must be it." she said quietly.

"What is?" asked Po.

"We're almost to Gongmen. Go wake up the others."

Po made a move to do as Tigress asked. Before he could do so, though, he suddenly realized that now was probably a good time to ask about what he noticed back when they first boarded the boat.

"Say Tigress, I was wondering. You've been looking kind of antsy to get this whole mission over with. Is there some reason why?"

Tigress admittedly wasn't expecting to be asked that kind of question. While she was in a hurry to get things moving with their mission, she never really thought about why that would be the case, at least until now.

Sighing, Tigress walked up to the bow of the boat, staring off towards Gongmen City as she finally admitted why she felt so worried.

"I just really have a bad feeling about what's going to happen inside that city."


	15. Chapter 15

Apologies for the long wait. I noticed the lack of feedback I've been getting for the last two chapters (namely, none). I'm not blaming you guys, though. Frankly, you can't expect everyone to throw a review on for every chapter. So that's why I decided to give this a rest and focus on other stuff. Hopefully now that you've all had some time away, you'd be more willing to put some reviews down. Please and thanks.

* * *

As the other kung-fu masters made their way out of the boathouse, having been woken up by the commotion outside, Po stared at Tigress, unsure what to think after hearing her confession.

"What do you mean by a bad feeling, Tigress?"

With everyone else staring at her silently, Tigress was admittedly a little apprehensive about actually going out and confessing her true feelings about the mission, but after some gentle prodding from Po, she finally spoke up.

"Well, I'm sure you all are aware of this fact, considering it's been mentioned multiple times since we've left, but we're essentially jumping straight into the unknown. We don't know anything about this weapon Shen has, either. Honestly, we've never gone into a mission without a firm plan before, and now that we're going in completely blind, it's got me a little worried."

Po immediately felt a twinge of sympathy for Tigress, although his curiosity was a little piqued as well considering he always knew her as one of those hardcore, devil may care kind of girls.

"Come on, Tigress. We've never let our lack of a plan stop us before. I mean, heck, I was completely winging it during my battle with Tai Lung, and look how that went!"

Po glanced over at Tigress, hoping that she would understand where Po was coming from, but he was surprised to find that she still had something to say.

"No offense, Po, but I wouldn't call what you did to Tai Lung 'winging it'. That was more dumb luck than anything."

"Well, at least I beat him, didn't I?" asked Po, holding his toned arms wide.

Tigress looked over at the other members of the Furious Five, hoping that they had something to say, but the only one who actually said something was Crane, and it wasn't what she expected to hear.

"He did beat him in the end, Tigress. And really, we didn't even see him fight. Remember? We were still recovering from getting our butts handed to us by him at the Thread of Hope."

"Yeah, I don't think you have a right to call Po's defeat of Tai Lung dumb luck if you haven't even seen the fight in question." said Viper defensively.

"Guys, please." said Po, holding up one of his hands towards Crane and Viper. "I appreciate you guys coming to my defense, but Tigress is technically right. Tai Lung pretty much beat himself. I just used his anger against him."

"Oh Po, you don't have to be so modest." said Viper.

"I think it's less me being modest and more being honorable. That's what being a Dragon Warrior's all about, I suppose." he said, shrugging.

"Either way, I see your point, Po." said Tigress, interrupting before Po and Viper's conversation could get any further. "I do think we should at least be extremely careful, though."

"Hey, I can't argue with that." said Crane, looking around as all of the other kung-fu masters agreed with his sentiments.

Everyone soon fell silent, choosing to enjoy the splendor of the still approaching skyline of Gongmen City, but it wasn't long before Mantis spoke up, voicing something interesting that came into his head during the previous conversation.

"You know, I've just realized something since we were talking about Tai Lung. Aren't there a couple of parallels between Tai Lung way back when and Po now? It's kind of eerie, to be honest."

Po opened his mouth to argue before realizing that Mantis was actually right, his eye widening in shock when that fact registered in his mind.

"Hey, you're not going to go rampaging through the valley to get your hands on the Dragon Scroll, are you?" asked Crane, only partly jokingly.

"No! No…I'd never do that to the valley. Besides, why would I need to steal the Dragon Scroll when I already am the Dragon Warrior?" said Po, noticeably nervous.

"Okay, good. Just checking."

Po fell silent, slightly relieved that he wasn't being accused of anything wrong. After a few seconds, he chose to return to the front of the boat, reflecting on this new revelation how similar his anger problems were to Tai Lung's.

* * *

Eventually, the boat pulled into the harbor just outside of the boundaries of Gongmen City, and Po and the Furious Five made their way off of said boat after thanking the first mate for taking them there.

The six kung-fu masters were about to head through the gate and into the city when Tigress suddenly stopped them in their tracks, holding a clawed finger to her mouth in the universal gesture to remain quiet.

Thankfully, everyone followed along with Tigress's instructions and kept their mouths shut, so Tigress took the time to sneak towards one of the doors barring the gate into the city, peeking around the end for a few moments before dashing back to the others.

"The city's crawling with guards." whispered Tigress. "We're going to have to stay out of sight if we're going to get to where the weapon is without raising any alarms."

Everyone else nodded to show they understood, except for Po. To Tigress's surprise, though, when she looked over to find out exactly why he didn't show he understood, Po had what appeared to be a determined look on his face, his straw hat pulled low over his face as he stared past Tigress at the gate.

Even though Tigress had no idea of what exactly was going through Po's mind, she decided to take his expression to mean that he understood as well, so despite the niggling feeling in the back of her mind that something was going to go wrong, she led the rest of the team as they slipped through the gates into Gongmen City.

* * *

The infiltration into Gongmen City was going well so far for the kung-fu masters. Despite the city crawling with wolf guards, the six Jade Palace masters were managing to stay out of sight, mostly using the rooftops to avoid detection. Even Po, whose massive bulk was what most of the others believe would be a detriment, managed to keep up with the others, although there were some moments where he struggled with remaining on top of the some of the slippery tiled roofs.

Halfway through the lower parts of the city was when things got a little hairy, though, as while the six of them were busy climbing up a taller building, Mantis's eye managed to catch something strange going on in the streets down below them.

"Oh no." he whispered as he watched a wolf guard shake down a sheep for some information.

Mantis quickly looked up above him and saw Monkey standing a few feet above, about ready to climb up another few feet when he noticed Mantis pause.

"Something wrong, Mantis?"

"Don't let Po look down. He really should not see what's going on down there right now." said Mantis, looking noticeably apprehensive.

Monkey, having not heard any of the commotion down below, looked past Mantis, the simian's eyes widening when he realized just what was going on.

Unfortunately, before he could actually make a move to prevent Po, who was climbing just above him, from seeing the act in question, the voices of the wolf and sheep suddenly increased in volume.

"I told you I don't know anything! I don't know why you keep asking me these questions!" said the sheep.

"Oh, really? Excuse me if I have a hard time believing you." said the wolf, becoming more animated as he spoke.

"What is all of that yelling going on down there?" said Po, slightly annoyed.

"It's nothing! Just keep climbing!" said Monkey, attempting to block Po's view of the interrogation.

It was all for naught, though, as Po, being quite taller than Monkey, managed to easily see past him and Mantis right as the wolf grabbed the sheep by her robes.

Predictably, Po's eyes narrowed, a growl escaping his throat as he watched the wolf began shaking the innocent sheep.

Before anyone could make a move to stop him, Po kicked off of the building he was hanging on, falling about twenty feet before landing right on the wolf to break his fall.

Po, his anger once again getting the best of him, violently punched the wolf in the snout, successfully knocking him out in one blow. He didn't stop there, though, as he continued to sock the wolf in the face, trading fists as he brutalized the unsuspecting guard.

Finally, Po was forced to stop when he was roughly pulled off of the wolf by Tigress. The panda still put up a hell of a fight, though, kicking and screaming as he tried to launch himself back on to the wolf's prone body.

"Po! Po, stop! You're making a scene!" said Tigress, attempting to calm the raging panda down as she noticed the crowd staring at the two of them.

Po ignored Tigress's pleas, too incensed by the brazen display from the now heavily bleeding wolf to listen to any form of reason. This forced the rest of the Five to abandon their positions on top of the roof to join Tigress in their attempt to calm the raging panda.

Unfortunately, by the time they even got there, the commotion had attracted even more guards, and they circled the six kung-fu masters, brandishing spears and other long weapons.

The Furious Five adopted their fighting stances, thinking that they were going to have to fight their way out of this predicament. However, the issue that they failed to take into consideration was that Po was still screaming his head off, about ready to beat more wolves to within an inch of their life.

With reason all but gone from Po's mind, he rushed forwards, ready to throttle as many wolves as he could get his hands on, but before he could do so, he was met with around fifteen spear points aimed right at his throat.

Po had enough of his faculties left to know that his odds were pretty low to get out of his current predicament without being impaled on one of those sharp spears, so he remained frozen in place, breathing heavily as he fixed the darkest glare he could muster on the wolves brandishing said spears.

As for the Furious Five, once they saw Po essentially give up despite the state he was in, they all knew that fighting was unfortunately a lost cause, so they gave themselves up as well.

Po was soon roughly pushed towards the others as manacles were affixed to each of the Furious Five. Tigress and Monkey's arms were chained behind their backs, while Crane's torso was banded together to prevent him from flying off.

As for Viper and Mantis, the former had her two ends chained together, while the latter was stuffed into a small cage being held by Po, whose arms were chained in front of him.

As the kung-fu masters were led away from the marketplace, Po spoke up, intending to get a point across to the wolves that had captured them.

"I don't care if you all are listening to me or not, but I promise you this. Once I get out of these cuffs, you all are going to wish that I only went as far as I did with that guy back there."

Some of the wolves who were bringing up the rear couldn't help but look back at their comrade after Po's threat, cringing as they took in the state of him, with a good chunk of missing teeth, quite a bit of bruising and a lot of blood covering the wolf's face.

Even though those wolves in the back were a little nervous, the procession remained as it is as Po and the Five were led right towards where Lord Shen waited with anticipation.

* * *

As the procession made their way into the center of the city, and the Tower of Sacred Flame soon lorded over them, Po and the Furious Five were shocked to find what awaited them inside the tower's courtyard.

Most of the courtyard was pretty barren, which was fair considering that's what most royal courtyards are like, but the thing that really came as a shock to them was a large hammer, planted into the middle of the courtyard, a web of cracks spread all around it.

"Is that…Master Thundering Rhino's hammer?" asked Po quietly, the walk from the marketplace giving him enough time to calm down.

Po already had a general idea of the answer to his question, but the look of sorrow on the rest of the Five's faces proved him very much correct.

His expression faltering, Po looked down at the ground for a few seconds as they continued walking, reflecting on the sacrifices that were made in the name of China's safety.

"I hope you're doing alright in the Spirit Realm, Master Rhino." Po thought to himself. "I don't know how Master Ox and Master Croc are going to handle things now that you're gone."

Po's thoughts soon drifted to the two remaining members of the Kung-Fu Council, as he wondered just exactly what they were up to. The letter didn't mention anything about where they even were, and their limited time in actually getting information before they were captured came up completely empty.

Hopefully, when they made their escape (Po absolutely refused to say if, knowing that there was no way he was going to give up finding a way out of their current predicament), they would be able to get some information about Ox and Croc's location.

"Keep moving!"

Po was pulled out of his thoughts by a spear being poked into his back, thankfully not going any further than his vest, although it still stung quite a bit.

"Okay! I'm going!"

Po was forced to move forwards again, although he did give the wolf behind him another dark glare. This time, though, the wolf was unfazed, considering he didn't have the brutalized wolf behind him to accentuate the threat he made before.

The glare ended up earning Po a rougher poke in the back with the spear as the wolf growled heavily. Not wanting to cause any more trouble than he already has, Po remained silent, facing forwards as he continued walking.

Once the procession finally made it up to the Tower of Sacred Flame, they all paused, giving the kung-fu masters time to marvel at the height of the building before they were finally led in, Po and Tigress trading looks before heading in with the others.


	16. Chapter 16

As soon as the Furious Five, Po, and their captors made their way inside the tower, the kung-fu masters couldn't help but marvel at the architecture of the building itself.

However, they didn't get that much of a chance to marvel before they were once again roughly pushed forwards by the wolves behind them.

As much as Po was about ready to throttle one of them for being so rough, his attention was soon diverted away from their captors to what was in front of them.

"Oh good. Stairs." he said quietly, a smirk on his face.

There was a massive staircase right in front of the large group, winding back and forth all the way up to the top of the tower, to the point where even they couldn't see the ending.

While the old Po would have treated this as an adventure, considering his track record with this obstacle, the new one wasn't at all worried now that he knew that he was capable of climbing the Thousand Stairs back at the Valley without any issues.

As the group began making their way up the stairs, the limited space forcing the procession to group up into two lines, Crane couldn't help but ask something to Po, having clearly heard Po's recent comment. Luckily, the two of them were paired together, although Po's massive bulk forced Crane to remain slightly behind him to avoid being squished against the railing.

"Is something going on, Po? I heard you talking about the stairs like they were a bad thing."

Crane was admittedly well aware of the problems Po had with climbing stairs way back when, but he couldn't help but be curious considering the look that Po had on his face earlier.

"It's nothing. I'm just a lot more confident in my ability to get up these stairs."

Crane glanced upwards as he walked along, noticing just how many more steps they still had to go.

"You sure? I heard about how you managed to get up the Thousand Stairs fine, but I think there might be way more stairs here."

Po scoffed, his confidence overwhelming.

"I'll be fine. I'm actually in shape for once."

* * *

Po's confidence turned out to be a little misplaced. Even though he did manage to get up the stairs fine, the sudden increase in the incline once they got closed to the top managed to wind even the unflappable panda bear.

Once they finally reached the landing at the top of the tower, Po immediately bent over, his paws on his knees as he worked on catching his breath.

As the Furious Five and the other wolf guards filed into the room, the latter standing off to the side so that they didn't interrupt the impending proceedings, Lord Shen himself came over from where he was originally standing near the weapon to greet his guests.

"Greetings, young panda…and other guests! I am Lord Shen, and I-"

Shen was about ready to launch into a long-winded spiel before he was forced to fall silent, glaring at the clawed finger being held up in front of his beak by Po in the universal signal to give him a minute.

Shen was unfortunately forced to stand around awkwardly for a few moments to allow Po to catch his breath. After some time has passed, Po released the death grip he had on his knees and stood up, now ready to go.

The peacock took Po's recovery as a sign to speak, but before he could actually do so, Po spoke up, causing Shen to groan in annoyance.

"Hey, is that the weapon you've got over there?"

"Yes, but I'll have you know that I've spent the last fifteen-"

"Good, because once we get out of these cuffs, we're going to destroy that weapon, take you down, and free Gongmen City from your tyranny." said Po matter-of-factly, once again angering Shen due to the peacock being interrupted.

"Fine!" said Shen, ignoring Po's declaration. "If you don't want to be cordial, I think we can skip the formalities and just get to me finally destroying you once and for all."

Shen turned to the wolf guards, who nearly jumped at how fast Shen whipped his head around to address them.

"Guards! Place our invited guests in front of the cannon. I want them all to see just what kind of firepower they're dealing with before I end their pitiful existences."

The guards in the front all saluted before heading over to follow Shen's orders. However, before they could even get there, Shen was surprised to find that the Soothsayer was already over there, looking over Po as she prodded and tested the panda in different ways.

"Uh, wha' ar' you doin'?" asked Po, his full voice restricted due to the Soothsayer holding on to his tongue in one of her hooves.

The Soothsayer ignored Po's question in favor of muttering to herself, Po looking at her in confusion.

"Good health…good vision…alert…too bad he can only see through one eye…"

"Excuse me! We're in the middle of something!" said Shen, glaring at the Soothsayer.

Instead of backing away like Shen expected, though, the Soothsayer simply gave Shen an unimpressed look before returning to studying Po.

Eventually, the Soothsayer finished her testing and returned to where she was sitting originally.

"Finally! Now come on, you dolts! I'm anxious to show our guests the weapon!" he said, staring into the sky in exasperation for a few moments before gesturing towards the wolves, who had frozen in their tracks after the Soothsayer initially beat them to the kung-fu masters.

Po and the Five didn't put up a fight as they were set down in front of one of the walls, the barrel of the cannon staring the six of them down as Shen walked over to the cannon to make sure that they were in the best position.

"Ah, perfect! This is just the position I need to get the maximum amount of damage."

Considering they were still very much tied up, there wasn't much Po and the Five could do to change their fate, except for Viper. As Lord Shen continued to monologue, Viper got to work, using the point of her tail to work on furiously picking the lock to Tigress's manacles.

Shen was way too into his monologue to notice the look of understanding on Tigress's face as her sensitive ears picked up the sound of Viper's tail in her manacles. The tiger style master quickly formulated a plan of attack, but she only got as far as releasing the others from their manacles before she noticed Shen turn towards the cannon.

"I think I've said enough. Take aim."

The order was aimed towards the Wolf Boss, who was standing next to the cannon with an evil grin on his face as he held a lit wooden stick fashioned into a crude lighter that was covered in sulfur. As some of the other guards opened the screens behind the kung-fu masters, the Wolf Boss adjusted the cannon just a slight bit to where everyone could see inside the dark abyss inside the cannon.

Viper continued to work furiously trying to get Tigress's manacles unlocked, but it was tougher than she thought, and they were rapidly running out of time.

"Fire!"

Shen watched eagerly, waiting for the kung-fu masters to be blown out of the tower by the cannon, but his expression faltered when he soon realized that nothing was happening.

"Well? Light the f-…thing!" he yelled, holding himself back from vulgarity despite how angry he was feeling right now.

"I did!" said the Wolf Boss, confused before he noticed that the fuse wasn't lit.

Reaching up, the Wolf Boss touched the lighter to the fuse to light it again, but he cocked his head in confusion when the fuse suddenly went out again.

"What the-?"

The Wolf Boss repeatedly attempted to light the fuse as it repeatedly went out. Before long, though, he was suddenly caught off guard by a tiny object flying into his face, sending him down to the ground as the lighter flew out of his hands only to be caught by said small object.

"Fear the bug!"

Just after Mantis revealed himself, Shen whipped his head around to face Po, only to realize that inside the cage was a wooden doll made to appear like Mantis. As for Po himself, he glared at Shen the best he could despite the smirk on his face after knowing that he pulled a fast one.

Seconds later, Viper successfully managed to get Tigress's cuffs unlocked, and once she was free, Tigress didn't waste any time, using her brute strength to break the manacles off of everyone else.

Once Po was free, he took the lead, rushing towards the cannon as the others followed behind, Shen and the guards too stunned by their sudden escape to do anything.

A few feet before they reached the landing where the cannon was, Po suddenly dropped down to his knees, quickly turning his head around to the others behind him.

"Tigress, now!"

Tigress, running completely on instinct, used Po as a springboard, jumping off of his back before kicking downwards, sending the cannon flying into the air. Mantis, meanwhile, who had already jumped off of Tigress's shoulder while she was at her highest point, caught the cannon and kicked it downwards, sending it straight into the floor, smashing right through the wood as it plummeted towards the bottom of the tower.

As for Po, he was completely in the zone as he went off after Shen. Taking a running start, he leapt clear over the hole, spinning in the air before landing a spinning heel kick directly in Shen's face.

Shen, however, managed to roll through the attack and land on his feet, and just as Po was about to rush him again, Shen unfurled his train, Po shocked into silence when he saw the exact same symbol that he was seeing in his visions.

"You were there. You killed my entire family." he said breathlessly.

"Yes, that was me." Shen said simply, a smirk on his beak as he watched Po register this new information.

However, what Shen didn't quite expect was for the rage to overcome Po once again. A growl once again escaped the panda's throat as his expression turned into one of extreme anger.

"I'm gonna kill you!" he yelled before rushing forwards, intending to rip the peacock limb from limb.

Unfortunately, before he could even get his hands on him, Shen quickly hopped through a nearby open window, his unfurled train allowing him to glide off of the balcony as he escaped Po's wrath.

"You're going to have to do better than that!" Shen yelled as he glided over to the nearby tower.

Po, meanwhile, could only watch from the balcony as Shen made his escape, knowing that going after him would be incredibly stupid considering how high up they were.

Po slammed his fist down on the railing in anger, somehow managing to leave a dent before returning to the main room where the others were.

"Po, what happened? How could you let Shen escape?" asked Tigress, having noticed the peacock's dramatic flight to the other tower.

Tigress unfortunately didn't get an answer from Po, as the panda remained silent, too busy engaging in some breathing exercises to calm himself down.

Annoyed, Tigress was about ready to force Po to answer her question, but she didn't get much of a chance before the tower was suddenly rocked, sending an earthquake through the foundations.

"What was that?" asked Mantis, having been affected the most due to his small size.

Instead of answering, Po quickly rushed back out to the balcony, only for his eye to widen in surprise when he saw an entire line of cannons on one of the floors of the other tower, all trained right on the bottom floors of the tower they were currently in.

"Guys, we have to get out of here! Shen's trying to blow up the tower!"

"How? We destroyed the weapon!" said Viper in shock.

"He's got more." said Po grimly.

The Furious Five traded looks of shock, realizing that their work wasn't quite done yet. However, the more pressing matter was getting out of the tower before it collapsed, which seemed pretty likely now that they were assaulted by another earthquake coming from below.

"What do we do? We can't go downstairs! That's where they're attacking!" said Crane, desperately looking for a way out of their predicament.

"Then we go up."

Everyone whipped around to face Po, who was the one who brought up that idea.

"What? That's suicide! Besides, we're already on the top floor. How much farther can we go?"

"No, what I mean is that we climb up to the actual roof and ride it down once the tower collapses." said Po, trying to explain himself.

He was unfortunately met with disbelieving looks from the others.

"Hey, I know it's not the best plan or anything, but it's the best we got."

Tigress looked about ready to argue against Po's plan, but before she could actually do so, they were rocked by yet another earthquake, and she could hear some of the foundations beginning to crumble.

"The tower's about to fall. Everyone to the balcony!"

Although admittedly caught off guard by Tigress's sudden acceptance of Po's plan, the others quickly followed her orders as they rushed out to the balcony, where they could see the smoke coming from the heavily damaged lower floors of the tower.

"Start climbing! We don't have much time!"

Thankfully, considering they were already on the top floor, they didn't have much to climb, so after Monkey let Viper slither up on to his shoulders (considering she had no limbs to climb with), Po and the Five used the balcony to hop up on to the roof. Po had a bit of a struggle getting up on to the roof with his massive bulk, but they mostly managed to climb up without any issues.

Luckily, they managed to get up to the roof just in time, as the structure began to collapse after one final barrage of cannonballs hit the tower.

Frantically, everyone tried to figure out exactly which way the tower would collapse, but to their surprise, it actually stayed straight up, instead beginning to collapse in on itself.

Caught off guard by the unexpected direction, it took a few seconds for everyone to register that fact, but once they did, they quickly braced themselves for the inevitable.

"Everyone hold on!" yelled Po as the tower imploded in on itself.


	17. Chapter 17

Po and the Five held on as tight as they could manage as the Tower of Sacred Flame collapsed, but they all soon realized that with the tower imploding rather than collapsing like they thought would happen, surviving this kind of fall would be very difficult for them.

"We're not going to make it!" yelled Viper, her tail wrapped around the spire.

Pretty much everyone else agreed with her, but no one knew at first what to do about it. Soon enough, though, the answer came from a source that nobody really expected.

"We're gonna have to jump!"

"Are you crazy, Po? That's suicide!" yelled Mantis.

Po chose to ignore the fact that Mantis had a higher possibility of surviving considering his small size in favor of explaining himself.

"I don't mean jump off! I mean jump down! We can use the tower to make our way down!"

"That still sounds very suicidal." said Crane.

"I think we should at least try it, though. It's our best shot." said Tigress, catching everyone off guard.

They didn't really have any time to confront Tigress on the way she was acting, however, so the six kung-fu masters quickly ran towards the edge of the slowly imploding building, using the sloped tiles surrounding each of the floors as a way to get down.

Unfortunately, actually getting down proved to be difficult, considering how unstable the building was beginning to get. The tiles were beginning to slide off of the building and drop to the ground, which made getting down the lower floors a chore.

Tigress, however, managed to quickly find a new way down after a frantic search around the tower. Dropping down to all fours, she surprisingly hopped inside the building, bouncing off of different ledges as the method she was using proved to be much quicker than what they were originally doing.

As for everyone else, Monkey was the only one who followed Tigress's method, considering he was the only other one who was good at climbing. Crane went ahead and carried Mantis and Viper safely off of the tower, narrowly dodging a collapsing beam as the avian took off.

This unfortunately left Po in a bit of a bind. Even though Crane was definitely capable of carrying Po as well, he really didn't want to risk getting the bird hurt, especially considering Shen was still on the loose and they needed all of the help they could get.

Using Tigress and Monkey's method seemed unlikely as well. Sure, he definitely improved as a kung-fu master during his time away from the valley, but he never really managed to figure out how to move his massive bulk around as if it wasn't actually there. Even getting a running start probably wouldn't do much to help.

Po didn't really get much of a chance to think of a third option, though, as the balcony he was standing on soon broke apart. Unprepared for this to happen, Po fell backwards into the interior of the tower.

* * *

Po was fully expecting to become a large black and white stain on the ground as he fell off of the balcony but, as if by some kind of miracle, he managed to get just enough momentum from the fall to bounce off of the stairs.

Po immediately curled into a ball out of instinct, his straw hat flying off of his head as he hoped that this stroke of luck could be used to his advantage.

Luckily, things appeared to be going well so far for the panda, as he continued to bounce off of different ledges of the tower similar to how Tigress pulled it off. While it did hurt quite a lot for Po, especially when he banged against some of his numerous scars, he remained silent, refusing to break his concentration even for a moment.

Eventually, Po soon ran out of places to bounce against, and while this did concern the panda quite a bit, he was already nearing the bottom of the tower, and he ended up collapsing painfully against a pile of debris littered on the bottom of the tower.

Groaning, Po slowly picked himself up off of the pile, stumbling a bit on the slippery pile before catching himself, thanking whatever gods were watching that he managed to survive.

He wasn't out of the woods yet, though, as he was still inside the tower's boundaries, and the building was almost completely imploded.

Po nearly swore after realizing that fact, quickly running down the pile of debris before sprinting towards the nearest exit, which was somehow still in one piece.

Just as he was about to go through said exit, Po suddenly noticed that his hat was actually sitting a few feet away from where he was standing, which came as a surprise considering Po expected it to still be falling.

Still, he couldn't complain, so he quickly ran over, grabbed it and rushed back to the door, diving through just as a large amount of debris fell just where he was standing a few moments before, blocking the door.

* * *

"Whoa…that was close."

Po stared at what was once the Tower of Sacred Flame, mystified as what was originally an imposing tower that lorded over Gongmen City was now a pile of sticks surrounded by doors.

"Come on, Po. We need to get going."

Po was still pretty mesmerized by the scene in front of him, so he ended up getting pulled out his thoughts pretty roughly by Tigress, who had one of her paws outstretched to help him get back to his feet.

"Where's Shen? I've got a score to settle with him." Po asked as he grabbed Tigress's paw and got to his feet, the memories of his recent encounter with the peacock flooding back now that they were safe for the moment.

Most of the Five were admittedly caught off guard by the sudden change in Po's attitude, but Tigress took the initiative before they could try and confront him on that fact.

"We'll deal with Shen soon, Po. Right now we have to find out where he's making those cannons that he'd fired at us."

"That doesn't make any sense, though! How could he have made that many cannons?" said Mantis.

Nobody really could give a definitive answer to that question, so they chose to move on and focus on something else.

"How about we just ask around? I'm sure at least one person would know about where we're supposed to go." suggested Po.

Having no other real recourse, the Five and Po headed back into the main part of the city as they began searching around for any valuable information.

* * *

Thankfully, it didn't take very long for someone to have some of the valuable information in question, as the six masters ran into a nice goat woman who was all too happy to help them out.

"So…let me get this straight. Lord Shen has a 'factory'…" said Tigress, accentuating the last word with air quotes. "…where they do nothing but make cannons."

Tigress, having not heard of the concept of a factory, was slightly perplexed at the woman's explanation, but she was more than willing to hear her out.

"Yes, of course! I've seen the place myself."

"Wouldn't you need a lot of metal for that, though? It seems kind of counterproductive." commented Viper.

"Oh my god, I just realized something, you guys!" said Po, putting two and two together after thinking about what Tigress and Viper said.

"What is it, Po?" asked Mantis, admittedly curious.

"Remember back at the Musician's Village when they took all of that metal?"

"Oh yeah, you're right! Shen must have been going around stealing as much metal as he could so he could make those cannons!" said Viper.

"Then that means that we've got to shut this down as soon as possible. We can't let Shen make any more cannons. Otherwise he'd be unstoppable." said Tigress, looking grim.

"Where did you find this factory, if I may ask?" said Crane, turning towards the goat woman, who still looked pretty pleasant as she listened to their conversation.

"Oh! It's actually a few blocks behind the Tower of Sacred Flame! Or…what's left of it. You can't miss it." she said, glancing towards where the tower used to stand.

"Thank you for the assistance." said Tigress, bowing in respect once they all found out where they would be going next.

"Oh, it's quite alright. I'm glad to help."

The rest of the Five and Po bowed in thanks as well. However, before they could actually begin moving towards the factory, they were suddenly interrupted when the lady had something else that she'd forgotten to mention.

"Wait! Don't you all want to have Masters Ox and Croc to help you out?"

Po nearly shot out of where he was originally standing as he went back to where the lady was standing.

"You know where they are?!"

"Of course! I saw them being led away myself."

"So then where are they being held?" asked Tigress, glancing over at Po to make sure he wasn't going to do anything rash.

"They're being held in Gongmen Jail, a few blocks over that way." she said, pointing towards the west as she spoke. "I would be careful, though. It's guarded pretty well."

"Oh, I don't think we'll have that much of an issue with that." said Tigress lightheartedly.

Although the goat woman was a little puzzled, having noticed Tigress's tone, she was more than willing to take the tiger-style master for her word.

After once again thanking the woman for her information, the Furious Five and Po began walking, heading back towards the center of the city as they discussed this new revelation.

"What do you think we should do? Ox and Croc would be a pretty valuable addition to our team, but from the look on your face, I can tell you have some issues." said Po.

Indeed, Tigress looked pretty apprehensive as she walked. She could clearly see the advantages of having two members of the Kung Fu Council on their side, but the disadvantages of having so many people to keep track of weighed on her mind as well.

"I think we should just head for the factory."

Po was admittedly surprised with Tigress's decision, but he remained silent, letting her explain herself.

"I'm all for getting more help, but we're already working so well together. Would adding two more help or hurt us?"

"I think it would help."

Both Po and Tigress whipped their heads around, surprised to find that it was actually Crane who chimed in. Even Crane was a bit surprised himself, as he flinched a bit at the sudden eye contact he received from the panda and tiger.

"Uh…well, I see your point, Tigress. There might be a chance that adding more people would throw a wrench into the well-oiled machine that we are, but I think that it's still very much worth it to convince them to join up with us. Besides, who knows how many cannons Shen made by this point? There may be too much for just the six of us to handle."

Tigress paused, trying to formulate a way to take the other side of the argument that she hadn't already mentioned, but she soon sighed in defeat, realizing that it was probably for the best to go along with it.

"Alright, we'll go find them."

Although Po was a bit nervous after seeing the look on Tigress's face, he willingly followed her as she led him and the rest of the Five in the direction of Gongmen Jail.

* * *

Once they managed to find the sign that advertised the location of Gongmen Jail, the six masters found that the front door was only guarded by two wolves, which fell in line with their previous assumptions that it wouldn't be all that hard to get in.

After Po and Tigress sent the two wolves flying through the door with a pair of roundhouse kicks, the two of them bounded in to the building, hopping down into what appeared to be a large circular-shaped room with a yin-yang pattern adorning the floor and the cells littered along the walls.

"Oh look…visitors."

The six masters froze after hearing this new voice, the others having just hopped down from the upper ledge.

"Who was that? Master Ox? Master Croc?" asked Po, looking around aimlessly for where the voice came from.

"Over here."

Po looked over and found, to his surprise, both Master Storming Ox and Master Croc sitting in one of the larger cells, looking melancholy as they both stared at the new visitors.

Resisting the urge to fanboy, Po quickly walked over to the cell's door and felt along the bars, hoping to find something that he could use to break the two of them out.

"Don't worry, you two. We'll get you guys out of here, and then we can go and take that crazy peacock down!"

"What's the point?" said Master Croc.

Po immediately paused, confused as he looked at the two kung-fu masters.

"What do you mean? You guys are two of the greatest kung-fu masters in the world! If you guys work with us, there's nothing that Shen can do to stop us."

"At least until he turns his cannons on us. Then what?" asked Ox.

"We take those cannons down. Look, I don't quite understand why you guys are so down. You can't protect the city by not doing anything. It just doesn't work that way!"

"You don't understand!" snapped Croc, shocking Po into silence. "We've seen firsthand what those cannons can do to people like us. We lost our own brother. Can you imagine just how that makes us feel?"

Po fell silent, looking away in regret as he realized that he touched a nerve. However, what Tigress saw next was something that even she didn't expect to hear, as Po lit into them, his voice remaining eerily calm despite the anger he was feeling.

"I can't believe that you two are just giving up this easily. The Ox and Croc I know would never try to hide with their tails in between their legs, even if the odds were stacked against them. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that you didn't even try to get out of this cell even once! How can you even call yourselves kung-fu masters if you can't even grow a freaking backbone?!"

Po's last sentence even shocked the two jailed masters into silence. They could only watch as Po seethed, pissed off that two of the kung-fu masters he looked up to were acting this way.

Ox and Croc continued to remain silent, but they were soon pulled roughly out of their thoughts by the door to their cell suddenly flew by them, Po having used his enormous strength to kick it off of its hinges.

"If you two ever decide to grow a pair, the exit's right here." said Po, gesturing towards the opening before heading back out into the main area of the jail, the Five standing there stunned as he walked up.

"Come on, you guys. They aren't going to help. Let's just head for the factory."

Without waiting for an answer, Po began walking forwards towards the exit to the building, only to be stopped by a paw at his chest.

"You're not going anywhere, Po."

Po looked up from where he was staring at the paw to find Tigress holding him back.

"Excuse me?" he asked, a growl escaping his throat.

"You heard me."

Both Po and Tigress stared each other down as the rest of the Five looked on, before Tigress spoke once more.

"I've been watching you ever since you first returned from you trip, and I'm worried. You fly off of the handle almost at the drop of a hat, and frankly I believe it's beginning to affect you, especially when you're around Shen. So, I think that it's best that you stay with Ox and Croc, and we'll handle taking care of everything. That is, unless you're willing to tell us what's wrong with you."

Po noticed Tigress's eyes trace along some of the scars along his chest before returning to making eye contact with him, the unasked question registering in Po's mind.

"I'm going with you, and you're not going to stop me."

Separating, Tigress adopted a fighting stance as Po continued to seethe, the two of them standing on either side of the yin-yang pattern on the floor.

"Tigress, no! You really don't have to do this!" said Viper, attempting to defuse the situation.

Tigress ignored Viper's words, in favor of saying one word.

"Ready."

Po, still angry after dealing with Ox, Croc, and now Tigress, rushed forwards, intending to impose his will using any means necessary. However, Tigress once again managed to use Po's anger against him, flinging the panda backwards every time he tried to get past her and make his escape.

A few more minutes have passed as Po continued to fail to get past Tigress, and the panda continued to get more and more agitated.

"This can all be over if you will just tell me why you have those scars, Po!" said Tigress, getting agitated herself after having to deal with defending against Po for so long.

Po was about ready to make another attempt at evading Tigress, but to her surprise, Po began clutching at his head, the decision eating the poor panda alive.

After letting out a pained yell, Po looked about ready to finally confess what has been eating him all of these years, but what he said first was something none of the people in the room had ever expected to hear out of the normally rambunctious panda.

"I was suicidal, alright? Jesus!"

* * *

 **Okay, before you guys ask about Po being suicidal, please wait until his explanation next chapter before you send out angry comments. Believe me, it's more substantial than you guys think, and yes, this ties into the beginning of the story, so if you want to reread the beginning few chapters to get some context, feel free. I won't stop you.**


	18. Chapter 18

"What?"

Tigress was the only one to speak after Po's confession, as the rest of the Five were too shocked to speak. Even Ox and Croc were up against the bars of their cell, staring at Po's back as the panda breathed heavily.

"Is that what you wanted to hear? Huh?"

Nobody answered, still stunned by this new revelation, which caused Po to shake his head in exasperation before making an attempt to walk past Tigress once again.

"I knew that you wouldn't understand. You're too hardcore for these kinds of things." he said, sighing. "Come on, Shen's not going to wait for us to kick his butt."

However, once again he was prevented from getting past Tigress, but this time instead of throwing him back; she lunged forwards, wrapping her arms around Po's shoulders in an unmistakable hug.

"The hardcore do understand." she murmured, letting Po go after a few seconds.

As for Po himself, he stood there, stunned by the sudden affection from the tiger-style master, before he slowly began shaking his head, catching Tigress off guard.

"No, you don't. Believe me, this is way more complicated than you think."

"Well then, why don't you help us understand?" she asked, hiding the tone of exasperation in her voice.

Po briefly considered just saying no, as he wanted nothing more than to avoid having to relive those years, but there was no real point anymore considering how much he's already said, so he reluctantly sighed before beginning to speak.

"Do you guys remember that attack on the Valley before I left ten years ago?"

Tigress's eyes widened after hearing that day brought up, and she could tell that the others were just as surprised.

"Yes, I do. Why?"

"What I told you back then about why I actually wanted to leave wasn't actually the entire reason. It was more than that."

"How could it be more?" asked Viper, unable to process what Po was confessing to. "You said that you didn't want to screw up and get innocent people hurt, so what's the issue?"

"It's because of the villagers!" Po yelled, watching the once again stunned looks on the others' faces for a few moments. "They blamed me for getting their loved ones hurt."

"What? No, they couldn't have blamed you! It wasn't your fault that they got hurt!"

"They did, Viper. You and all the others didn't see the looks of anger they were giving me that day. It was like they wanted nothing more than to get their revenge on me for causing that whole mess!" he said, once again breathing heavily thanks to all of the exertion he was putting out speaking.

"Why didn't you tell us, Po? We would have been glad to help you through this!" said Crane, looking incredibly distraught.

Po looked away after hearing Crane's question, unable to look the Furious Five in the eyes as he gave his answer.

"You guys wouldn't have believed me."

Crane, Viper and Mantis all opened their mouths to argue against Po's assertion, but before they could even speak, Tigress held up a paw to silence them.

"Tigress!" said Viper, unsure why she would be doing what she did.

"No, Po's right. As much as I don't want to admit it, I never really believed that any of the villagers could be capable of something like that. Still, I believe that there's a very good chance that they'll forgive you if you just talk to them!"

Tigress stared at Po for a few seconds, hoping that her suggestion would be able to get through to the panda, but the look on his face told her that it wasn't going to be as easy as she thought it would be.

"So, now we know the real reason why you left in the first place. This still doesn't explain how you managed to get all of those scars." said Mantis, gesturing towards Po's chest with one of his appendages.

Tigress was about to chide Mantis for the poor way of bringing up the subject, but Po interrupted before she could do so.

"It's okay, Tigress. There's no point in hiding it anymore."

The Five were fully expecting Po to start explaining what happened to him, but to their surprise, Po removed the vest he had on, exposing every single one of the scars he had dotted over his entire body.

Ox and Croc were more shocked than anything to see everything that Po's been through over the years, but they respectfully remained silent.

"I wasn't lying when I said the first few years of my journey were the worst of my life."

Po was beginning to choke up a bit as he relived everything that had happened to him during his early years away, but he managed to keep himself together long enough to speak.

"The business with the villagers ended up affecting me a lot more than I thought. _A lot more._ "

Po paused for a second to let the emphasis stew before moving on.

"Every night I had nightmares. The villagers are all chasing after me, their eyes red and demonic. I had nowhere to go before I'm eventually overrun. Bottom line is that they never seemed to go away until around four years in when I really started training. Before that, though, I wanted nothing more than to just end it all, hoping that would stop the nightmares."

Po sighed heavily, wiping at his watery eyes with his arm before finally confessing.

"I threw myself off of a high cliff. The scars came from when I hit some of the jagged edges of the cliff on the way down."

Tigress and the Five were once again stunned into silence from Po's confession, although there was one question that pervaded through everyone's mind.

"How did you even survive? I know only you know exactly how high that cliff was, but most people would probably not survive a high fall." said Viper, looking on the verge of tears as she spoke.

"I honestly don't know. I woke up in the house of an old couple who patched me up. I was told I lost quite a bit of blood. Frankly, it was a miracle that I managed to survive."

Po paused once more, looking at the Five for a moment before continuing on.

"Anyway, I spent a couple of months at their village while my extensive list on injuries healed. I'd rather not get into any details about what they were. The free time I had did give me some time to think, though."

"I'm guessing that's when you decided to train to become a better warrior?" asked Tigress.

"Not immediately. The nightmares still didn't go away for another couple of months, so I tried to end it a few more times, but thankfully the villagers there were able to stop me and talk me out of it."

"Wait…what about back at the Jade Palace? Was that nightmare that I tried to talk to you about the same nightmare?" asked Viper, trying her best not to look hurt.

"Yeah, it was. Sorry for lying to you, Viper. I just wasn't ready yet." said Po, looking down at his feet.

Viper was admittedly a little apprehensive at first, not sure if she was ready to forgive Po, but after giving it some thought and seeing the contrite look on the panda's face, she saw no reason not to forgive him.

"It's okay, Po. I'm sure you had your reasons."

Po was prepared to have to do something drastic to get Viper to forgive him for what he did, so it came as a bit of a surprise for her to forgive him so quickly. Still, he couldn't help but smile, happy that things were beginning to work out.

The good mood, however, didn't last very long.

"What about Shen, though? I heard you threatening to kill him." said Crane.

"He…he killed my family. My entire species, too."

Po was noticeably upset at having to confront the fact that his real parents were dead. However, his feelings were nothing compared to what Tigress and the Five were feeling, as well as Ox and Croc.

Everyone was well aware of the fact that Shen was insane and needed to be stopped more than anything, but they never really thought that he would resort to what amounted to the genocide of an entire species just to get his way.

As Po went to pick up his vest and put it back on, he made a move to once again head towards the exit to the jail. However, once again he was stopped by Tigress, although this time she didn't get physical with him.

Instead, she simply stepped in front of him, halting his progress. As she tried her best to keep her emotions in check after hearing everything about Po was going through, the panda in question looked at Tigress indignantly.

"Tigress, you do realize that Shen's running around doing whatever he wants out there while we're held up in here, right? We're wasting valuable time!"

"I know."

Tigress sighed before looking Po in the eyes and speaking once more.

"I'm only stopping you because I still think it's safer for you to stay here with Master Ox and Master Croc."

"What? Why?!" asked Po, shocked.

"It's for your own good. I saw the way you acted when we confronted Shen up in the tower. You're not thinking straight, especially now that we all know that he's the one who killed your parents!"

Tigress fell silent, hoping that Po would be willing to follow her orders.

However, instead of becoming complacent like she expected, Po's expression hardened into a scowl.

"I'm going with you, and there's nothing that you can say or do to stop me."

Without waiting for an answer, Po pushed Tigress out of the way, the tiger-style master too surprised by Po's reaction to prevent him from moving.

As Po continued moving towards the exit, Tigress admittedly considered just rushing him and forcing him into the cage so that he couldn't go anywhere, but as much as she thought it would be the right thing to do, all she would end up doing was piss off Po even more, and that would only end up making things worse, so she reluctantly remained silent, letting Po go.

However, as she went to follow Po (with the rest of the Five following close behind), Viper felt the need to voice the concerns that she had.

"Tigress, are you sure we should let him come with us? You've seen how dangerous he can get when he's angry!" she whispered.

Tigress sighed heavily.

"I really don't want to let him, but keeping him here is just going to make things worse. Frankly, I don't know if Ox and Croc would be able to keep him from following us anyway."

Although admittedly surprised by Tigress's blunt assessment of Ox and Croc's chances at preventing Po from following them, Viper remained silent, her concerns somewhat placated even though she was still very worried about Po's mental state.

* * *

Eventually, after a long walk completely in silence, Po and the Furious Five found themselves in front of a large factory. They could all feel the heat coming from inside the building, which was a little worrying to them considering they couldn't even imagine the kind of heat that was inside the building.

Still, they steeled themselves for the battle ahead, and after trading looks between each other, they snuck inside, dodging guards scattered around the outside of the factory, and even using a barrel full of gunpowder as a distraction. However, once they managed to enter the factory itself, they were quickly set upon by a large group of wolves.

"Well, look who's here! You six are starting to become a thorn in my side, I'll have you know." said Shen, a smug look on his face as he walked through the circle of wolves to meet the kung-fu masters face to face.

"We're going to shut this factory down, Shen, and you're not going to stop us." said Tigress, glancing over at Po to check on how he was doing now that Shen was once again in the picture.

As she predicted, Po had a look of pure hatred on his face as he growled loudly, but to her surprise he managed to keep himself contained enough so that he didn't immediately rush Shen when he showed his face.

As for Shen himself, he simply chuckled, the smug look remaining on his face as he took in the sight of the stressed out masters.

"I'd like to see you try."

Turning on his heel, Shen gestured towards the Five and Po as he walked towards the edge of the circle.

"Kill them."

All of the wolves immediately rushed forwards upon hearing Shen's orders, brandishing all kinds of weapons as they went to eliminate the kung-fu masters.

However, despite the amount of stress they were all going through due to Po's predicament, the Furious Five remained more than capable of defending themselves, as they all split off to battle their own group of wolves.

Tigress managed to easily hold her own against the three wolves that she was paired with, dodging a few swipes from the swords that they were all carrying before parrying one and hitting an elbow strike right into the wolf's snout, disarming him. After throwing the weapon away, Tigress jumped into the air and hit a graceful spin kick, knocking the stunned wolf out as she turned towards the other two.

Viper was having a little bit of difficulty handling her wolves. Despite being cold-blooded and being used to using external heat sources to keep her body temperature as it is, the extreme heat was starting to get to her. Still, she remained focused, slipping through a strike from yet another wolf with a sword before wrapping herself around his arm, squeezing as hard as she could until the wolf was forced to let go of the sword. After being disarmed, Viper uncoiled herself and jumped forwards, lashing out with her tail and catching the wolf in the jaw, stunning him as she immediately slammed him into the ground, taking another wolf down.

As everyone continued to fight the still quite large number of wolves, with Monkey using the machinery to help him out with his wolves and Mantis using his precision nerve strikes to destroy the wolves' weapons, the fights soon begun to spill on to the higher portions of the factory, as things began to get a little dangerous.

As for Po himself, he was busy dealing with Shen, the wolves too frightened by what the panda was capable of to take him on themselves.

However, the peacock himself was more than capable of keeping up with the enraged panda, as he continued to block Po's strikes, even managing to get in a few of his own with his metal encased talons, leaving a few more scratches on Po's already scarred body.

Eventually, the fight spilled on to a higher platform just like the others did, and while the others were too busy continuing to take down wolves, Shen and Po had paused in their fight, as the panda, despite the anger he was feeling, wanted to know one very important thing.

"Why Shen? Why did you kill my entire species? Wasn't having the throne enough?!"

Po waited, still on guard as he watched the mad peacock consider his question. However, to his surprise, he didn't answer immediately, instead jumping over to an object that was covered with a thick black sheet, flinging it off and jumping on top of what was revealed to be one of his cannons.

Po, shocked by how easily he was caught unaware, barely heard what Shen said after lighting the fuse with his metal-covered talons.

"You were all just…in my way." said Shen, smiling evilly.

Po barely managed to grab the nearest item he could find, which turned out to be a small wok, and placed it in front of him before the cannon fired and hit its mark, sending him smashing through one of the walls of the factory and off into the distance.


	19. Chapter 19

"NOOO!"

Tigress could only watch as Po was blasted off of his feet, nearly knocking her off of her own feet as he went flying out of the factory and into a river a few miles away from the city's walls.

* * *

Miles away from the city, back at the Jade Palace sat Master Shifu, meditating intensely as he balanced on top of his staff inside the Dragon Grotto.

However, it didn't take long for Shifu's concentration to be broken when the red panda was hit with a disturbing vision.

Caught off guard, Shifu ended up falling off of his staff and hitting the ground, thankfully not causing any damage but ultimately knocking the wind out of him.

As Shifu picked himself up off of the ground, he continued to sit there, breathing heavily as he realized that something has gone terribly wrong.

* * *

Everyone else was more stunned than anything at Po's fate, but the one who really felt it was Tigress herself, as she growled heavily before launching herself at Shen.

"You…coward!"

Unfortunately, before she could manage to get her hands on the peacock, Tigress was immediately intercepted by reinforcements from outside the factory as the wolves tackled her and held her down.

As Shen stared at the tiger-style master, with a look on his face that made Tigress wonder if it was even possible to be even smugger than he was, the peacock began speaking.

"I hope you realize now that you're never going to stop me now that I've eliminated your friend." he said quietly, smiling evilly as he spoke.

Tigress only replied with another growl, too enraged by what he did to Po to say anything.

"Take them to the sailboats. I want everyone in the city to know that I've won, and what better way to assert my power than parading their last bastion of hope in front of them?"

After a few seconds of Shen leering at Tigress, the mad peacock cackled as Tigress was pulled up to her feet and led away.

She quickly looked around the factory, hoping to find another one of the Five to release them from their predicament. Unfortunately, they were all captured as well despite a valiant effort to defend themselves from the reinforcements.

So, even though her mind was screaming at her to find a way out of the predicament she and the Five found themselves in and beat Shen's face in, Tigress reluctantly allowed herself to be led away as Lord Shen looked on, a satisfied smirk on his face.

* * *

Compared to the massive din going on inside the walls thanks to the recently concluded battle, the valleys outside of Gongmen City were actually relatively quiet and peaceful. The air was nice and cool, and the only sound you could really hear if you could manage to drown out what was happening inside the city was the flowing water inside the rivers.

However, the water wasn't the only thing flowing down the riverbank, as there was also a heavily-injured and unconscious Po floating down the river as well, somehow miraculously still alive despite the odds.

He continued to float down the river for a few more feet until suddenly coming to a stop, a low bridge blocking him from going any further.

Before the river could manage to send him any further down the river, a figure came to meet the unconscious panda, somehow managing to pull him out of the river with a grunt before poking him a few times with a stick to make sure he was alright.

Thankfully, Po was still breathing, so the figure sighed in relief before picking him up and dragging him off, their expression showing exactly what they felt about having to drag around Po's massive bulk.

* * *

"Ugh…"

Po finally woke up a little while later, somehow surprised that he was still alive. However, just like when he initially survived throwing himself off of the cliff, the reason why he survived didn't come to him immediately.

Thankfully, though, he began to get an idea when he saw an old goat lady nearby, her back turned to him as she was busy boiling something in a pot. However, after a few seconds, Po soon began to realize that he recognized the garb she had on and put two and two together.

Po attempted to quickly get out of the bed he was lying down in to try and get away, but before he could actually pull himself up, he was hit with a wave of pain, involuntarily squeezing his eyes shut and groaning as he clutched at his torso, which was bandaged and covered with acupuncture needles.

This ended up catching the Soothsayer's attention. Quickly, Po collapsed back on to the bed, pretending to still be unconscious so that she wouldn't get any ideas, but when he opened his eyes a little bit to check, he found that the Soothsayer was already right up in his face.

"Ah!" said Po, nearly jumping out of his seat and regretting it as the pain flared up again.

Noticing the amount of pain Po was in, the Soothsayer silently held out a cup with a weird liquid that he really didn't want to know was made from.

"Look, I don't know what you're trying to do to me, but I'm not going to drink that-"

Po's words were immediately garbled as the Soothsayer jammed an acupuncture needle into his forehead, making his open eye bulge out and his jaw fall open. The goat immediately poured the concoction into Po's mouth before removing the needle, forcing Po to swallow.

Predictably, Po gagged once the taste hit him, but he remained as composed as he could manage while the Soothsayer returned to the fire.

"Why did you save me? I thought you were working with Shen." grunted Po once he felt comfortable enough to sit up.

"To fulfill your destiny." said the Soothsayer simply. "Besides, if I wanted you dead, I would have just left you in the river."

"Wait, what? My destiny? What are you talking about?" asked Po, confused as he began removing the acupuncture needles and bandages.

"Don't you remember where we are?"

Still confused, Po looked around the area, only to shrug.

"I am surprised you don't. Although I suppose that may have been because you were so young."

Po only had a few seconds to register what the Soothsayer meant by him being so young before he suddenly begun hearing screaming in his ears. Crying out in pain, Po crawled out of the burnt out house the two of them were in, slowly picking himself up off of the ground as he clutched at his head.

"Ah, perhaps you do remember." said the Soothsayer as she gazed at the pained expression on Po's face.

"It's just a nightmare, isn't it?" asked Po, shaking his head once the pain subsided.

"Nightmare…or memory?"

Puzzled, Po slowly walked over to a nearby puddle, looking down at his reflection for a few moments before things suddenly changed and he could see his younger self through the reflection, laughing happily.

Looking up towards the sky, Po couldn't help but smile as a repressed memory came from the back of his mind and played out in his head.

* * *

There was a village full of pandas, living happily as the young cubs played around with kites and the older pandas performed their usual duties without any cares in the world. Po could even see his own parents standing in front of a house as they waved sweetly as his younger self crawled towards them, clutching a tiny panda doll.

"This used to be a thriving village…that is until Lord Shen decided that he wanted more. I foretold that a panda would stand in his way…but I never could have predicted what he would have done next."said the Soothsayer, her voice slightly quieter than usual as Po's memories continued to flow through, the panda staggering a bit as he reflected.

The seemingly picturesque village was suddenly engulfed in flames as pandas ran around the area, screaming before eventually being cut down. Po could see his baby self hiding behind a set of stairs, terrified as he watched the carnage around him.

However, baby Po was soon spotted by a peacock, which turned out to be Shen himself flanked by two wolves.

"Get them all!" yelled Shen, pointing towards him.

One of the wolves, which Po soon recognized was the Boss Wolf he ran into multiple times, pounced at Po, intending to rip the infant's throat open. However, before he could do so, he was suddenly struck in the eye with a rake brandished by his father.

"Take our son and go! I'll hold them off!" he heard his father yell.

Po saw his mother quickly grab his younger self and run, the young panda losing his grip on his doll as it fell to the ground and underneath one of the burning houses.

* * *

Back in the burned out village, Po reached under a pile of boards, his paw wrapping around what turned out to be the exact panda doll that his younger self dropped in his memories.

Perplexed, Po stared at the burned doll for a few seconds before another wave of memories hit. This time, it's the same memory he had when he had the visions when confronted with Shen's insignia, his mother running away as he looked on, looking through the eyes of his younger self.

Po immediately shut his eyes, trying to block out the memory as it was too painful to remember.

"Don't try to stop it. Let it flow." said the Soothsayer as she watched Po.

Taking her advice in hand, Po relaxed, letting the vision play out.

* * *

He could see his mother running through the woods, carrying his younger self as Shen and the wolves gave chase, the Wolf Boss's eye now damaged thanks to his father's attack.

His mother soon came to a stop, desperately looking around for a place to hide before her eyes soon landed on a cart full of vegetable crates.

Sliding down an embankment, Po's mother made her way over to the cart, slipping Po into a crate marked with radishes before backing away as she was about to run off and leave Po behind. However, she reconsidered once she heard baby Po start to cry, quickly jogging over and picking Po up, hugging him tightly and planting a kiss on his forehead.

A look of regret on her face, Po's mother placed Po back into the radish crate before running back up the embankment, glancing down at Po's outstretched arms before looking away, wildly gesturing as she led Shen and the wolves away.

* * *

As Po relived the memory of his last time seeing his mother, he stood in the middle of a clearing in the burned out village, his eye closed as he began performing the tai chi movements that Master Shifu had showed him way back before this whole mess started, his limbs flowing like the water from the nearby river.

Lifting a paw, Po caught a droplet of water, letting it slide up and down his arms and paws before finally setting it down on a nearby leaf, the droplet remaining in one piece the entire time.

As Po's eye snapped open, the Soothsayer walked forwards, standing slightly off to the side of Po as she began to speak.

"Your story may not have had such a happy beginning, but that does not make you who you are. It is what you do in the future that makes you the way you are."

The Soothsayer paused as she let her words hang in the air.

"So…who are you, panda?"

At this, Po looked up, a new determination in his eye as he stared off towards Gongmen City. Everything that he had done in his life ran through his mind as he readied himself for the journey ahead, from the day he first was taken in by Mr. Ping all the way to the point where he was now.

"I am Po…and I'm gonna need a hat."

"You already have a hat."

Confused, Po looked up and realized that he already had a hat on. Although slightly mystified as he wondered how he still managed to have his hat considering how far and how fast he fell after getting hit with Shen's cannon, he put that thought into the back of his mind.

Steeling his resolve, Po began making his way back towards the city, the Soothsayer looking on as she felt confident that Po would be able to fulfill his destiny.

* * *

 **Okay, so I know this chapter is a bit shorter than normal. I originally intended to mix the Inner Peace scene and the final battle into one chapter, but as you can probably tell, the Inner Peace scene ran a hell of a lot longer than I thought it would. So I essentially decided just to cut things off where they are so I can keep the final battle and epilogue to one chapter (yay, we're almost done!), so I hope the slightly shorter chapter isn't a big issue.**

 **Anyway, I won't be getting into any more details about future projects until after the next chapter, so I'll see you guys then.**


	20. Chapter 20

Back in the city, there was an air of celebration in the air. However, the only ones who seemed to be celebrating were Lord Shen and his army of wolves.

Shen was standing on the bow of the middle of a fleet of ships as they all waited for the right time to set sail along the river.

"Ah…isn't this air just intoxicating?" said Shen after taking a moment to breathe in and out.

No one really answered Shen's question, as they assumed that it was supposed to be rhetorical. To everyone's surprise, though, the peacock was in fact looking for an answer, and his head turned towards the nearest wolf, who happened to be the Wolf Boss.

"Well? Am I right?" he asked, slightly annoyed at being ignored.

"Oh! Uh…yes. Yes it is." said the Wolf Boss, caught off guard by Shen's question.

Thankfully, Shen ended up missing the confused look the Wolf Boss gave him, considering he was too busy looking upwards, where all of the Furious Five were chained together, hanging from a hook that was normally used for fishing.

"I really hope that you five up there are paying attention. Once we reach the harbor, nothing will stop me from spreading my influence all throughout China, and then your precious kung-fu will be nothing but an afterthought. Now how does that make you feel?" he asked, a smug smile on his face.

"You're a monster, Shen." said Tigress, although her normal energy was very much tempered thanks to the situation they were in.

"Why thank you. I aim to please."

Ignoring Tigress's look, Shen turned towards the other ships, projecting his voice as much as possible so everyone could hear.

"Set sail, everyone! We're burning valuable daylight!"

After a few seconds pass, the message is successfully transferred throughout the fleet, and there was only the sound of many sails being unfurled as the boats began sailing along the river.

* * *

Minutes pass as the fleet of boats sail along the river, Lord Shen staring intently forwards, eager to finally get to the harbor and begin his conquest of China.

Meanwhile, the Furious Five could only watch. The amount of chains they were bundled together with made it nearly impossible to break through, even with strength like Tigress had.

"Man, I never thought I'd die like this. I figured I'd settle down with a nice female mantis, have some babies, and then she'd eat my head. That would've been nice." said Mantis, despondent as he stood in his cage.

"Come on, you guys! Po would have wanted us to remain strong. Right, Tigress?" asked Monkey.

He turned towards Tigress, expecting her to follow along with his pep talk. However, his expression soon faltered when he noticed the look of grief on her face.

The boats continued on their merry way, undaunted by anything that it could have possibly hit.

The Five could see the looks of terror on the villagers' faces as the looming spectre of the armada passed by them.

Eventually, though, the fleet of boats came up to a low-hanging bridge. It was obviously going to be very impossible to get the boats under that bridge, but Shen was undeterred.

"Lord Shen, what are we going to do about that bridge?" asked one of the wolves.

"Nothing stands in my way."

Although admittedly a little confused by Shen's cryptic answer, the wolves eventually managed to figure out what it meant.

The Five's eyes all widened in shock as they watched the bridge be blasted apart by the cannons, the villagers on the bridge barely able to get to safety.

"You coward!" yelled Tigress, growling angrily at Shen.

Unfortunately, her name calling ended up falling on deaf ears, as Shen returned his focus to the river in front of him.

However, his focus didn't last long, as his eye caught something up on one of the roofs dotting the area around the river.

"What the devil-"

This ended up catching the Five's interest, as each of them strained through their bonds to see what Shen had seen.

"Wait a minute, is that-"

"Po?"

Even though Viper was a little perturbed at Tigress's interruption, she was more surprised to find a very much alive Po standing on one of the roofs a bit of a distance away from where they currently were.

"Oh for the love of-" said Shen, face palming before beginning to gesture angrily. "How many times do I have to kill this blasted panda before he stays dead?!"

His question went unanswered, mostly because Po was too far away for him to actually hear.

As for Po himself, he remained silent, well aware that trying to talk to Shen would be pointless as well, so after staring Shen down for a few seconds, Po threw his hat away before making his way down the roof towards the streets.

"Hurry, take aim!" said Shen, wanting to end things quickly before Po could reach the boats.

However, taking aim proved to be a heck of a lot more challenging than they thought. With how long it took for the wolves to fully aim the cannon each time, they had no way of keeping up with Po's evasive maneuvers.

Eventually, Po successfully managed to make his way down to the street and hop on to one of the boats. Unfortunately, he was forced to quickly freeze, as two of the cannons were pointed right in his direction.

Luckily, though, Po realized something that the wolves didn't realize until one of the fuses were already lit.

"Whoa, don't shoot! Don't shoot!" yelled one of the wolves next to the unlit cannon, having noticed that the cannons were pointed at each other.

On the other side, the wolf handling the lit cannon realized what was going on, jumping on top of the cannon as he desperately tried to blow out the fuse.

Thankfully for them, he managed to blow the fuse out, but by the time he did so, Po had already pressed his advantage, rushing forwards as he barreled into the wolves defending the much larger ship carrying Shen.

Po was unfortunately very much outnumbered, but somehow he's able to slowly make his way through the crowd, getting his hands on an ax and tossing it towards the chained up Furious Five.

"Use this!" he yelled, hoping that the Five would get the idea as he continued to defend himself against the onslaught of wolves.

Luckily, they were all actually paying attention to what was going on, and as the ax flew towards them, Tigress went into action.

"Monkey, grab it!"

Monkey did as he was told, grabbing the handle of the ax with his tail and using the momentum to swing it upwards and chop through the chain holding them up, freeing them all as they immediately joined the melee.

* * *

The Furious Five and Po continued to fight their way through the army of wolves, the scene turning into a metaphorical game of football as each side continued to push back and forth against each other, no one really getting anywhere thanks to the sheer number of wolves Shen had at his side.

Eventually, though, Po and the Five were beginning to get pushed back once more, and while Po was busy fending off a couple of wolves, some other wolves took the opportunity to sneak behind him and attack while he was unaware.

However, they were immediately cut off as the wolves were sent flying by a strong strike from a pair of ornate axes.

Having heard the cries of pain, Po turned around after having taken care of the wolves to find someone he didn't expect to see.

"Master Ox!"

Master Ox didn't really get much of a chance to say anything before they were set upon by wolves again. This time, though, the two that came forwards were by cut off by a figure flying out of the water, sending them flying with a split kick before landing on the ground in a textbook split.

"And Master Croc! I thought you guys were comfortable staying back in jail." said Po, unsure of what to think about these new circumstances.

"Well, we had a bit of a discussion after you guys left. What you said made us really think about what we were doing, but it was your friend that really convinced us to fight."

Po was about to ask who this friend was when he recoiled after noticing a line of wolves sent flying on one of the nearby boats.

The one who took care of the wolves turned out to be none other than Master Shifu, sans green sash. Once the red panda reached the end of the boat, he quickly flipped into the air, landing right next to the others with his staff in paw.

"Master Shifu! You're here!" said Po, smiling.

Shifu was all business, only acknowledging Po's exclamation with a silent nod before getting to work.

"Everyone, quickly! We must prevent the boats from getting to the harbor!"

The others let out an exclamation that showed they understood Shifu's orders before rushing forwards.

As Ox, Croc, Shifu, Mantis, Viper and Crane defended themselves from yet more wolves, Tigress quickly leaped into the air, bringing her foot down in an axe kick as she launched one of the cannons into the air.

Once the cannon was sufficiently high enough, she leaped into the air once more, grabbing the cannon with both arms before throwing it down as hard as she could.

With the sheer force it was traveling at, the two boats she was aiming at didn't have a chance, the sterns sinking into the river as the boats came to a stop.

As for Po, he was busy handling another pair of boats. Grabbing a pair of ropes from the boats, Po hopped between the two boats, using his enormous strength to pull the boats together, causing his boats to also come to a stop thanks to the limited space they had in the river.

"Crane, go!" Po yelled as he looked backwards.

Thankfully, Crane was free after getting called on. The avian kung-fu master quickly flew behind of the boats Po had control of, rearing his wings back for his ultimate attack.

"Wings of Justice!"

Crane flapped as hard as he could, releasing a gust of wind that sent the boat sailing into the other boats that Tigress had taken care of, the resulting carnage successfully blocking off the harbor.

"Yes!" Po whooped before hopping back on to the boat as he headed towards Shen's boat, the other kung-fu masters not far behind.

As Shen watched the masters slowly make their way towards him, plowing through wolves like they weren't even there, the peacock quickly turned towards the Wolf Boss.

"Why aren't we firing?"

"They're taking out our gunners! They're getting too close to us!" he said, slightly panicking.

Shen looked back towards the melee, ending up locking eyes with Po as the panda continued to make his way towards them, the peacock shivering in disgust.

"Fire at them, now!"

"But sir! We'll kill our own men!" said the Wolf Boss, hesitating as he brandished the lit stick.

"I don't care! Now fire!"

Instead of doing as he was asked, the Wolf Boss threw the stick away, glaring at Shen as he resolved to protect his pack.

"No."

Unfortunately, his defiance only earned him a knife to the chest. As he fell off of the boat and into the water, Shen hopped up on to the cannon, using his metal-covered talons to light the fuse like he did in the factory.

Po, meanwhile, froze when he noticed the cannon being aimed directly at him, remembering the incident in the factory quite clearly.

"Po, no!"

Tigress thankfully noticed the cannon being fired, pushing Po out of the way before the panda ended up taking another hit.

Thankfully, the cannonball narrowly missed Tigress, but it ended up blowing up the boat they were on, sending all of the kung-fu masters flying. Po even ended up blacking out temporarily after hitting the water.

Luckily, though, Po managed to land on a broken piece of wood, saving himself from drowning.

Unfortunately, as he looked around the harbor, he noticed that no one was in any condition to fight. Most of the others were too busy holding on to their own chunks of wood to keep afloat, even Tigress, who Po floated over to just to make sure she was alright.

"Tigress…" he said once he reached her, grabbing her paw.

Thankfully, the tiger-style master was still conscious. Relieved, Po floated away from her, not noticing Tigress reaching out before letting her arm fall back on to the wood.

His attention returned to Shen, Po gave the mad peacock a hateful glare before climbing on to an overturned boat, facing the fleet of boats as he sighed heavily, closing his eyes.

"As you wish." said Shen, taking Po's actions as a sign of him giving up. "Let's finish this."

Shen signaled to the rest of the boats, and once the message traveled along the fleet, they immediately went into action.

Tigress and Master Shifu could only watch in despair as every cannon on the fleet of ships was aimed right at Po. However, to their surprise, Po wasn't terrified at all. In fact, he seemed relatively calm, which puzzled Shifu greatly.

"What is he doing?" he said to himself as he watched Po stand on the boat.

His question was quickly answered, though, when he noticed Po's leg move in a circular motion behind his body.

The red panda's eyes widened as he watched Po perform the exact series of tai chi movements that he showed him way back before this whole mess even started, coming to a stop with his paws at his side forming a proverbial mitt.

As for Shen, he was more amused than anything to watch Po perform those moves, but he decided that it was probably best to get things over with.

"Fire!" he said, a look of joy on his face as he prepared to watch the carnage.

The cannon next to him fired, the cannonball traveling at a rate of speed that no one would be able to see clearly.

However, to everyone's shock, Po actually caught the cannonball, spinning around to redirect the cannonball's momentum before flinging it into the water. Shifu looked on, stunned at the feat that Po managed to pull off, only for the moment to be ruined a bit when Po realized his paw was on fire. Panicking, Po quickly rushed over to the water, quickly dunking his paw in before it caused any damage.

Shen looked on, mildly perturbed at the scene in front of him before turning back towards the wolves.

"Again!"

Another cannonball fired, but Po was once again ready. This time, his motion was a little less fluid, as he fumbled the cannonball a bit. Somehow, though, the cannonball ended up falling a few feet from one of the ships.

Yelling in triumph, Po quickly realized that his plan was working before he was forced to narrowly dodge a couple of cannonballs.

"Someone kill him already! What am I paying you stupid dogs for?" yelled Shen, angry that his supposedly unstoppable weapon was literally being thrown back in his face.

The wolves continued to fire at Po, frantically loading cannonballs into the cannon and firing. However, Po continued to dodge every shot thrown at him, even showing off a bit as he did a flip around two cannonballs before sending another one back at them with a couple of midair spins added in.

Eventually, after a few more salvos on cannonballs, the ones that Po threw back were beginning to find their targets, the cannonballs successfully destroying boats on the outside of the fleet.

"What?! No!" yelled Shen, stunned as he watched his fleet sinking one boat at a time.

Shen's focus returned to Po just in time to see the panda point his claw at his eye before pointing at him, in the universal sign for 'You're next'.

Growling in anger, Shen watched as Po got himself ready. Rushing over to the cannon on his ship, Shen shoved the gorilla guard out of the way, deciding to take care of things himself.

Smiling evilly, Shen lit the cannon, standing off to the side as it fired, the ball heading right for Po.

However, Shen's look of joy soon faltered as Po once again caught the cannonball. This time, though, Po began yelling as the cannonball's momentum forced both him and the boat back several feet.

Luckily, the panda still managed to keep his feet, and as the cannonball spun between his arms, Po launched himself into the air, a spiral of water surrounding him before he began spinning in a circle.

Both Shifu and Lord Shen were stunned as Po's spinning caused a fiery yin-yang symbol to appear in the air. The spinning soon began to slow down, though, as Po changed his vertical spinning motion into a horizontal motion, spinning the cannonball like a discus before throwing it back at Shen.

"Skadoosh!"

* * *

 **Okay, I really need to stop trying to predict how my chapters are going to be laid out. The final battle has gone on for way longer than I thought, just like the Inner Peace scene last time. However, I do promise that next chapter will be the final moments of the battle, followed by the epilogue, which by proxy means that next chapter is the last. Anyway, have a good one, you guys.**


	21. Chapter 21

The cannonball flew out of Po's hands, heading straight back towards where it had originally been fired from.

He didn't move a muscle from where he had landed after performing his acrobatics, his throwing arm hanging down below him as the rest of his body was leaning over it.

Soon enough, the cannonball hit the target, flying right back into the cannon it was fired from as the weapon immediately exploded.

As Po watched Shen and the gorilla get sent flying by the cannon's explosion, he finally stood up, taking the opportunity to finally relax after what became a very trying few days.

"It's finally over." he said to himself before he made his way over to the edge of the boat he was standing on to dive back into the water and check on the others.

However, to his surprise, he found that not only was there no one in the water, they were all safe and sound on one of the docks spread out along the harbor.

A thought grew at the back of his mind as he wondered just how they managed to get themselves to safety with how injured they were, but his happiness that they were alright overrode his interest in that topic, so he dove back into the water, using one of the nearby pieces of driftwood to help carry him back to them.

Before he could actually get to them, though, his ears caught the sound of a loud groan of despair. Confused, he admittedly wondered where it was coming from for a moment before realizing that it was coming from Shen's boat.

His curiosity overcoming him, Po turned the piece of driftwood he was on, heading over towards where Shen's boat lied, which was somehow still afloat despite looking like a smoking husk.

After climbing up on to the deck, Po got a chance to look around and he found that where the cannon was originally located was a pile of debris. The actual cannon part still appeared to be in one piece, which must have been a testament to the metal it was created with, but everything else was just splinters. The cannon itself was also leaning against two sets of ropes, which admittedly made Po a little wary considering there was no telling how strong it was.

Walking forwards, Po finally noticed Shen himself slowly picking himself up off of the ground, heavily bruised but still somehow conscious.

"How? How did you do it?"

Po stared wide-eyed at Shen for a few seconds, not expecting the peacock to have noticed him there.

"The cannonball throwing? I just loosened up and used the momentum to throw it back."

"No, not that!"

Shen sighed, trying his best not to get worked up.

"I had your family…your entire race murdered! How can you still have obtained peace even after all of that…after everything I've ever done to you? I've practically made your entire bloody life a living hell for my own amusement!"

Po looked away for a moment, unsure of how exactly to explain himself.

"Believe me Shen, I had trouble accepting that for a while. I mean, who wouldn't be angry when you've found out that someone had not only murdered your parents, but your entire race? But then I was taught that it's better to let go of what has happened in your past, because what you are now is the only thing that matters."

Po sighed, glancing over at the kung-fu masters on the dock, who looked positively surprised to find the changes that Po had went through after the last few hours.

After giving them a small smile, Po turned back towards Shen, reaching out with a paw.

"So, does that answer your question?"

Shen stared at Po's paw, stunned as he registered just how badly his plan has blown up in his face. The realization, though, has just ended up making him more desperate, and he quickly hatched a plan.

Shen reached out with his wing, grasping Po by the paw as the panda pulled him up. However, unbeknownst to Po, Shen still had some more knives hidden in his sleeve.

Using a surprising amount of strength for someone as injured as he was, Shen pulled Po forwards, quickly pulling out one of his knives and stabbing it straight into Po's gut in one fluid motion.

Po barely had time to register the pain before he was pushed backwards, the knife still embedded in his gut as the wound began to bleed.

"Po!" yelled Tigress from the dock, shocked at the audacity of Shen's actions.

Growling furiously, she was about to hop on to Shen's boat herself and take on the mad warlord, but before she could do so, she was stopped in her tracks by Master Shifu.

"Stay back, Tigress. Po needs to do this himself."

"Master, what are you talking about? He's wounded!" she said, trying to convince Shifu to let her go.

The red panda, however, remained steadfast.

"That is an order, Master Tigress."

Despite wanting desperately to just say screw his orders, Tigress reluctantly remained where she was, glancing back at the stunned faces of her comrades for a few seconds before returning her focus back to Po's predicament, hoping that he would still be alright.

As for Po himself, things weren't going well. The knife still stuck in his gut limited the amount of blood he was losing, but he was still losing some at a decent rate, which was starting to make him feel light-headed.

He didn't really get much of a chance to try and focus, though, as by the time his brain was starting to decide whether to remove the knife or not, Shen had already pulled out his guandao and jumped forwards, intending to finish the job.

Po managed to dodge the first few slashes, but the sudden movements was starting to make his vision swim, and with a mad peacock on a mission to plant his guandao in the panda's throat, he knew that it was going to be tough to find out exactly where it was coming from.

After narrowly dodging a few more swipes from Shen's weapon, Po made a move to grab Shen and disarm him, but the mad peacock narrowly avoided it, jumping out of the way as he flung a knife in Po's direction, followed by a few more once he landed back on his feet.

The first knife ended up catching Po on the cheek, shaving off a few inches of his fur but thankfully not causing any damage. Po was ready for the other knives, though, as he quickly grabbed a piece of wood from nearby, the knives harmlessly thudding into the plank.

Throwing the board away, Po ducked another swipe, only for his ears to catch the sound of rope snapping in half. He unfortunately couldn't find out exactly where that noise came from if he wanted to keep his head on his shoulders, but he had a general idea of what had happened.

"Shen, wait! You're only going to cause your own destruction if you continue like this." he said during a lull in the action.

This warning only served to infuriate Shen, as it reminded him of the prophecy which led to all of this happening. Rushing forwards, Shen flung his guandao, intending for it to land right in Po's face.

However, the panda ended up ducking, and the sharp edge of the guandao ended up cutting through the other rope holding the cannon off of the ground.

Realizing what was happening, Po rushed forwards, ignoring the pain in his gut as he jumped off of the boat, somehow noticing Shen's eyes being closed as he was crushed by the cannon, almost as if the peacock had finally accepted his fate.

Once he hit the water, barely managing to avoid the explosion of the cannon, Po quickly climbed up on to another piece of driftwood, lying down on his back so that he didn't lie right on the knife.

Once the adrenaline finally wore off, the pain returned in full force, and it took all of Po's willpower not to immediately go into the fetal position and cry, knowing that not only would that makes things worse in terms of the knife, but he would also most likely end up sinking into the water.

Thankfully, he didn't have to do any real movements, as he heard someone dive into the water nearby. When he began to feel the piece of driftwood moving, he slowly managed to pick his head up and find Tigress helping to pull him towards the dock.

"Tigress?" Po said weakly.

"Keep quiet, Po. We're going to do all we can to stop the bleeding."

Po remained silent, glancing down and noticing the red stain that was continuing to spread along his stomach.

"Oh. Forgot it was there for a second."

Tigress was about ready to admonish him for speaking despite her orders, but she figured it was probably just his woozy state that's causing him to act this way.

With Crane's help (despite the injured wing he suffered in the blast), Tigress was able to pull Po up on to the dock, and once the panda was safely on dry land, she immediately turned towards Master Shifu, who was looking on contemplatively as he watched Po's chest rise and fall as he breathed.

"Master, we need to find some bandages before Po bleeds to death."

This comment thankfully pulled Shifu out of his thoughts, and he quickly went into action to save his student. Turning towards the crowd that had gathered along the harbor, he cleared his throat and raised his paws into the air before beginning to speak, projecting his voice as loudly as he could manage over the murmur of the crowd.

"If there is anyone of you in this crowd who has any experience with medicine, please step forwards. We need all of the help we can get to save the Dragon Warrior's life."

Shifu lowered his paws back to his sides, a strained look on his face as he hoped that someone would step forwards.

Thankfully, there was someone in the crowd who stepped forwards, an old rabbit who looked a little apprehensive thanks to the stares that came from everyone else.

"Excuse me, Master. I'm a doctor." he said, his strong voice betraying his age.

Shifu quickly walked over to the rabbit, grabbing his paw as he spoke.

"Great. Do you have any medical supplies with you?"

"Not with me, but my clinic is nearby. I can run over and get them for you." said the rabbit, slightly taken aback by Shifu's desperate tone.

"That would be wonderful. Please, hurry!"

Shifu let go of the rabbit's hand, gently pushing him back into the city limits.

As the doctor continued to make his way through the city, everyone else stood vigil as they watched Po intently, waiting for anything to happen that would force them to intervene.

Thankfully, outside of the worrying amount of blood that Po had lost, he seemed to still be holding on. This did not make things any easier for the Furious Five and Shifu, as they were beginning to worry that the rabbit doctor was taking a little too long.

Eventually, the doctor returned, and just in time as when he took a look at Po, he found that the panda was beginning to get pale, so he quickly went to work.

"Please give me some space. I don't have much time." he said, shooing everyone around Po away as he kneeled down to get to work.

"Now, I'm going to have to remove the knife before I can get to work. This will most likely hurt." said the doctor as he got a good grip on the knife, preparing to make the extraction.

"It's fine, doc. I'll survive." said Po, although his voice sounded very distant.

The doctor steeled himself for a moment, counting down from three before finally removing the knife in one fluid motion.

Predictably, Po yelled in pain, everyone around him wincing as the wound began to bleed freely once more.

Moving fast, the doctor pulled the wound open, making sure that there was no internal damage before pulling it back together, grabbing a needle and thread out of the bag that he used to carry his supplies.

Threading the needle, the doctor began stitching up the wound, his pace much higher than someone of his age would normally be able to move, which was surprising to the kung-fu masters around him.

Finally, the wound was fully closed, and he gestured towards Tigress, who walked forwards and kneeled down next to him.

"Your friend here has lost a fair share of blood, but I think that he should still be alright. He'll need to rest here for a few days before I'd feel safe letting him return home with all of you."

Tigress was slightly caught off guard by the rabbit's request, not expecting to have to spend extra days inside the confines of Gongmen, but if it meant Po being okay, she would be fine with it.

After relaying the message to Master Shifu, who looked slightly disappointed at having to leave the Jade Palace alone for longer, Tigress turned back towards the doctor, who had signaled for more help.

"I would appreciate it if you could give me a hand cleaning all of the blood off so that we can get some bandages on him."

"We?" asked Tigress, puzzled.

"Yes, we! Do you really expect me to be able to lift a three hundred pound panda?" he asked, gesturing towards Po as he spoke.

Admittedly the topic of Po's weight had never come up during his time at the Jade Palace, but even she could find it a little bit hard to believe that he was that heavy, even with the muscle replacing the fat he originally had. Still, she figured that even then the doctor would have had trouble.

"Apologies. Let me help you." she said, bowing slightly before bending down for assistance.

Everyone else watched, remaining silent as Tigress and the doctor cleaned as much of the blood off of Po as they could manage before finally wrapping him up in bandages, Tigress helping to move Po as the doctor did the wrapping.

Finally satisfied, the doctor snapped his bag shut, giving the masters a bow of respect before making his way back into the crowd. However, before he could do so, Master Shifu stepped forwards.

"Wait!"

"Yes?" said the doctor, turning his head back around.

"I apologize for holding you up, but I must thank you personally for saving the Dragon Warrior's life."

The doctor looked slightly puzzled, but he willingly walked back over to Shifu, shaking the red panda's paw before the latter spoke up once more.

"By the way, I've noticed how quickly you work for someone of your age. If I may ask, the Valley of Peace could use someone of your expertise. Would you happen to be interested?"

The doctor paused, adopting a surprised look on his face for a few seconds before lightly shaking his head.

"I would love to, Master Shifu, but my place is here in Gongmen. The people need me, especially now that Shen is no more."

"I understand." said Shifu, bowing once more.

Once the doctor rejoined the crowd, Shifu turned to face the others, only to be surprised to find Po already sitting up. He was about to make a move to force him to lie back down, but Tigress beat him to the punch.

Instead of actually doing what Shifu was planning on, though, Tigress wrapped her arms around the panda in an unmistakable hug, Crane's beak falling open once more as everyone else looked on.

"That was pretty hardcore what you did out there." said Tigress, only to freeze when she felt strong arms being wrapped around her own shoulders.

"I learned it from you." said Po quietly before releasing his grip.

Tigress didn't move from her position, still stunned from the display of affection she received, as well as Po's…less than cordial tone.

As for the panda himself, he slowly turned himself around to face the others, careful not to aggravate his injuries.

"Master Shifu!"

Shifu gave Po a warm smile before speaking.

"I see that you've finally achieved inner peace…and at such a young age." he said, slightly put off by how quickly the panda achieved it compared to himself.

"Well, I learned it from a great teacher." said Po, giving Shifu a smile of his own.

Despite wanting to keep up appearances around everyone, Shifu couldn't help but feel a rush of gratitude from the compliment.

Turning away from the others so that they couldn't see the expression on his face, Shifu addressed them with an air of authority, wanting to move on more than anything.

"Master Tigress, once you and the rest of the Five feel they are ready, I would like you all to assist in the rebuilding effort. We have a few days to spare while the Dragon Warrior recovers, so I feel we should put this free time to good use."

"What about you, Master?"

"I, Master Crane, will join you soon. Right now I must work on finding a boat that will return us to the Valley as soon as Po has recovered. It worries me greatly to leave the Jade Palace alone for so long."

Everyone nodded before heading off towards the city, leading different parts of the crowd of people off to different areas as they began preparations for the repair project.

Satisfied with the progress they were making, Shifu turned to the only two masters still left standing with him on the dock, Master Storming Ox and Master Croc.

"If I may ask Masters, what is it that you wish to do now that Lord Shen has been defeated?"

"Well, I suppose the only real option for us to take control of the city ourselves." said Ox. "The people need someone to look up to while they are rebuilding."

"That sounds like an excellent idea, Master Ox." said Shifu.

"As for me, I'm going to start helping with the repairs." said Master Croc.

Before he could actually leave, though, Shifu held up his paw.

"Before that, would you mind if you two could do me one favor?"

Neither Ox nor Croc answered, but the expressions on their faces told Master Shifu that they were listening.

"You two are the only ones strong enough, so I would appreciate it if you could help Master Po here to a bed so that he may recover." he said, gesturing towards the panda in question who looked like his pride wouldn't be able to take this kind of action.

"Oh no, Master Shifu. I'll be alright. I can get to a bed myself."

"I'm afraid that wasn't a suggestion, Dragon Warrior. I do not want to risk you reopening your wound and extending our stay here."

Po still wanted to try and argue against this humiliating event, but Shifu remained firm, so reluctantly Po was forced to allow Master Ox and Master Croc to carry him as the four masters made their way to a place where Po could recover.

* * *

The few days passed without any real incidents outside of Po repeatedly trying to sneak out of his appointed recovery room (which was the bedroom of a family that was more than happy to help) to assist with the repairs.

Luckily, every time that happened he was soon caught and forced back into bed by Shifu or one of the Furious Five. It ended up getting to the point, though, where Mantis was forced to paralyze Po's limbs with nerve attacks so that the panda couldn't move.

Eventually, though, the day came when the boat would arrive that would take all of the kung-fu masters back home, and Po was ready and raring to go, having recovered to the point where Shifu was satisfied that he wouldn't rip his stitches open if he bent the wrong way.

Still, the red panda thought it would be better for Po to at least have some assistance to the boat, so as the six of them made their way over to it, Tigress remained nearby, having initially wanted to put Po's arm around her shoulders to help him out. Po shot that down immediately, though.

The boat soon pulled out of the harbor, and everyone took a look at the slowly retreating form of Gongmen City, happy that things were going right for once.

* * *

After a long boat ride and long period of travel, the six kung-fu masters finally returned to the Valley of Peace, ready to finally return to the Jade Palace after a long time away.

However, Po had something else in mind, as he turned to face his dad's noodle shop.

"I'll meet you guys up at the palace later. I have someone to talk to."

Without waiting for an answer, Po began walking towards the shop, ducking under the archway as he was quickly jumped by Mr. Ping, the goose wrapping his wings around Po's midsection in an unmistakable hug.

"You're back!" he said, a smile on his face. "So…did you save China?"

"Yep, I did. Did you manage things alright without me?"

"Oh yes. It was difficult, but luckily the turnout over the last few days was pretty manageable. Enough about that, though! You must be hungry!"

"Don't worry about it, dad. I can cook!"

"No, don't be silly. You've been away for ten years. No one can remember this kind of recipe after that long."

"Well…I tried it once after coming back. It didn't turn out so bad." said Po, although he did look a little apprehensive.

Mr. Ping couldn't help but smile, though, despite the way things were going.

"Come on, Po, I'll cook. You just need some time to knock some of that rust off, and then you'll be back to wowing everyone in no time!"

Po couldn't help but chuckle as he was led into the kitchen, happy that he still had a father that loved him dearly.

* * *

The Valley of Peace was finally able to get back to normal once the masters have returned. Things were a little different outside of the valley, however.

Hundreds of miles away, on top of one of the mountains of China, there sat a singular shrine, a figure inside a green cloak sitting within the boundaries of said shrine in deep concentration.

His concentration was soon broken, though, as his eyes flew open in surprise. As the figure registered what had just happened, he stood up, revealing himself to be a male panda, and there was one thing that ran through his mind as he looked down at the village below him, where there was an entire colony of pandas living their lives.

"My son is alive!"

* * *

 **And that brings our story to a close. I really hope that you've enjoyed the story throughout the five or so months I took to complete it.**

 **Anyway, I can imagine there's at least some of you who'd like to see a sequel to this, most likely adapting Kung Fu Panda 3. Unfortunately, there's really not much I can do outside of resetting Po's character development, which even if I was willing to do wouldn't even make a difference in the story. However, there is one part of KFP3 that I think I can work with. It'll probably only be a one or two shot, so I wouldn't expect much. Oh, and this will also address some of the other unanswered questions, so please keep an eye out for it.**

 **Anyway, thanks a bunch for supporting my work. I'll see you guys soon!**

 **RK**


	22. Sequel Update

Just a quick update to let you guys know that the sequel has now been posted, entitled After So Long. Enjoy! The link is on my profile.


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